A gruesome and deeply disturbing crime has shaken the town of Ravla Mandi in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar district, after police uncovered that a man’s death—initially reported as a road accident—was in fact a cold-blooded, pre-planned murder allegedly masterminded by his wife and her lover.
The victim, Ashish, had been married for barely three months to Arju, also known as Anjali. According to investigators, the marriage quickly turned sour, and Arju became dissatisfied with the relationship. Police say this dissatisfaction ultimately led her to hatch a conspiracy to eliminate her husband, enlisting the help of her lover, Sanjay alias Sanju, along with two other accomplices.
District Superintendent of Police Dr Amrita Duhan said that on January 31, 2026, Ashish’s uncle approached the authorities with a complaint stating that Ashish had died after being hit by an unidentified vehicle. Based on this statement, the police initially registered the case as a hit-and-run accident.
However, the narrative began to unravel after the post-mortem examination and a closer inspection of the spot where the body was found. The nature and pattern of injuries did not fully match those typically seen in traffic accidents, raising serious doubts among investigators. This prompted the police to launch a detailed technical, forensic and circumstantial investigation with the help of the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team.
The investigation revealed that the incident was not accidental but a meticulously planned murder. On the night of the crime, Arju allegedly lured Ashish to a deserted road under the pretext of going for a walk. Unaware of what awaited him, Ashish followed her. At the isolated location, Sanjay and the other accomplices were already lying in wait. They reportedly attacked Ashish with sticks, knocked him unconscious, and then strangled him to death using a muffler.
To mislead investigators and make the killing appear like a road accident or possible robbery, Arju is said to have handed over Ashish’s mobile phone and her own earrings to the attackers before they fled the scene. This was allegedly done to create confusion and divert suspicion away from a domestic conspiracy.
Based on the evidence collected, police arrested Arju, her lover Sanjay, and the two other accused—Rohit alias Rocky and Badal alias Siddharth. All four are currently in custody, and further investigation is ongoing to establish the full sequence of events and determine whether anyone else was involved.
Police also noted similarities between this case and another incident reported last year in Jaipur, where a woman allegedly plotted her husband’s murder with the help of her lover and his friend. In that case, the victim, Manoj Kumar Raigar, was found dead near a football ground with his throat slit. His wife, Santosh, later admitted during questioning that she had drawn inspiration from crime television shows and web series while planning the murder, and the accused had even used new SIM cards to avoid detection.
Authorities say such cases highlight a troubling pattern of carefully orchestrated crimes within marriages, often masked initially as accidents, and stress the importance of forensic scrutiny and sustained investigation in uncovering the truth.
