PUNE: Days after allegedly pushing Pune real estate director Ketan Agarwal to his death from Lohagad Fort, his fiancée Siya Goyal and her alleged lover Chetan Chaudhary have turned against each other, with both blaming the other for plotting and carrying out the murder, sources told TOI.With the two accused in police custody, the alleged conspiracy has taken a new turn as investigators found their accounts contradictory.Police sources claimed that the probe has established that Siya and Chaudhary were in contact for several months and had allegedly met at a city café a day before Ketan fell off the cliff at Lohagad Fort.The incident was initially believed to be an accidental fall, but police later alleged that Ketan was pushed off the cliff by Siya, Chetan, or both as part of a murder plot.During questioning, when the two were confronted with each other, their alleged unity broke down, with both accusing the other of being behind the killing.Investigators are now examining their statements, call records, CCTV footage and other evidence to establish the sequence of events leading to Ketan’s death.Police are also probing the alleged planning behind the crime, including the role each accused may have played in choosing the location, coordinating movements and carrying out the alleged act at the fort.
Ketan Agarwal, 26, director and chief marketing officer of Success Group — a family-run real estate business in Pune — died on June 18 after falling from a cliff at Lohagad Fort near Lonavla. Siya told his family and police that he slipped while posing for a photograph. The case was initially registered as an accidental death. What unravelled over the next 48 hours was a different picture entirely. Investigators found it suspicious that Ketan — described by his family as an experienced trekker — had fallen so easily. His family, too, refused to accept the accident theory and lodged a formal complaint. Police then began examining call detail records, CCTV footage and witness accounts, and what they found pointed to a premeditated murder. The day of the murder On June 18 — a day before Siya’s birthday — she insisted on a trek to Lohagad. The couple left Gahunje around 8.30 am and reached the foothills within an hour. Chaudhary, police said, had arrived ahead of them on a two-wheeler and was already waiting.A day before the incident, Goyal and Chaudhary allegedly met at a cafe and discussed the plan to eliminate Agarwal, even identifying a suitable spot on the fort from where he could be pushed, a police official said on Wednesday. Police said the location was chosen deliberately — a secluded stretch of the fort with significantly fewer visitors between Monday and Wednesday. Investigators suspect the duo had conducted reconnaissance visits before the crime.Chaudhary spent less than 10 minutes at the top of the fort and completed the full ascent and descent in under 50 minutes, police said. A security guard at the fort recalled a man claiming he had come for exercise. To avoid detection, Chaudhary had left his own phone at his Market Yard shop and carried an employee’s device instead. That employee is currently being questioned. At the cliff edge, police said, both Siya and Chaudhary pushed Ketan into the 400-foot gorge. In the hours that followed, Siya played the grieving fiancée with precision — alerting family members and locals, maintaining it was a tragic accident. Security personnel and the Lonavla Rural police recovered the body after a three-hour operation. On her birthday the next day, June 19, Siya posted an emotional tribute to Ketan on social media.
The hoodie in 33-degree heatThe first visual clue came from CCTV cameras installed at the fort’s ticket counter. Footage showed Ketan and Siya walking together, with a third figure trailing a few metres behind — a man in shorts and a hoodie, the front pulled low enough to obscure his face, with a headset worn over it.“We checked the temperature for that time on June 18 and found it was 33 degrees Celsius. Why would anyone wear a hoodie in that heat?” a police official said. At one point in the footage, Siya is seen glancing back, and simultaneously the hooded figure sits down abruptly — behaviour investigators found deliberate.The figure was later identified as Chetan Chaudhary. Cross-referencing photographs from his social media profiles with the CCTV imagery helped police narrow in on him. Call records showing thousands of calls between Siya and Chaudhary over six months — totalling 238 hours across 2,004 conversations, some lasting two to three hours — confirmed the connection and pointed to a sustained, coordinated relationship.Police took Chaudhary into custody. During interrogation, he confessed. Siya was arrested shortly after. A Wadgaon Maval court remanded both to police custody till June 29.Three failed attempts before the killWhat investigators pieced together was not a crime of impulse but a months-long campaign to eliminate Ketan.The first attempt, police said, came on May 31 — barely a week before a planned pre-wedding photoshoot in Bali. Siya had taken Ketan to Lohagad Fort that day. According to his father Vishal Agarwal, she tried to push Ketan off the cliff, but he grabbed a bush and saved himself. Siya then raised an alarm about a snake, claiming she had shoved him to protect him — and embraced him as if in relief.The second attempt was planned for June 4, but was foiled when Ketan’s mother refused to let him revisit the fort.A third attempt was made on June 14, when Siya managed to bring Ketan back to Lohagad — but aborted it because of heavy footfall on a Sunday.Between attempts, Siya also sabotaged the Bali trip. The group — Siya, her brother, Ketan and his sister — were driving to Mumbai airport with all four passports in a single pouch. At a food mall near the Khalapur toll plaza, Siya slipped back to the car, ostensibly for her phone.At the airport, Ketan’s passport was missing. The trip was cancelled. Police later confirmed she had torn the passport and disposed of it in a women’s washroom at the mall, telling investigators that Chaudhary had opposed the Bali trip. The motive Police said Siya was unwilling to go through with the marriage but also unwilling to call it off openly — fearing it would bring disrespect to her family. When investigators asked Chaudhary during interrogation why the two had not simply eloped, he told them that Siya was not in favour of running away either. Eliminating Ketan was, in their calculation, the only way out. The families had known each other for 35 to 40 years. Ketan’s father said the Goyal family had originally approached them with the marriage proposal. He said his family had initially hesitated over Siya’s young age but eventually agreed after her family insisted. The couple got engaged in February; a grand wedding had been planned at a palace in Udaipur for later in the year. “If she didn’t want to marry my son, she could have simply said so. We would have cancelled the wedding immediately. Why did they decide to take such a drastic step?” Vishal Agarwal said Tuesday, his voice breaking. “When the police came with my son’s body, Siya did not show any reaction. There was no sadness on her face.” Ketan’s mother demanded the death penalty. His father has called for a fast-track trial. Now blaming each other With both in custody, the united front has cracked. Sources told TOI that Siya and Chaudhary are now giving contradictory accounts and attributing the plotting to each other. Investigators are working to establish the precise sequence of events and whether anyone else was involved. Chaudhary’s family has maintained he is innocent; his lawyer has argued the FIR does not specifically describe his role and that he was implicated solely on the basis of being Siya’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, Maharashtra assembly presiding officer Raju Khare on Thursday directed the government to set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the case, following a demand raised in the assembly by NCP member Sunil Shelke, who also called for Siya’s family to be named accused and for the trial to be conducted in a fast-track court. Police said they are continuing to examine forensic evidence, call records and digital data.
Leave a Reply