Lohagad Fort sits above the Indrayani valley in Maval taluka, roughly 50 kilometres from Pune, Maharashtra. A popular weekend trekking destination, the fort draws visitors through most of the year, and in the weeks before and after the monsoon, the approach path fills with groups from across the Mumbai-Pune corridor.On the morning of June 18, Ketan Agarwal, 26, the director of a Pimpri-Chinchwad real estate firm and the son of Vishal Agarwal, a businessman in construction, was among those who climbed its stone steps. He had come to celebrate the birthday of his fiancée Siya Goyal, 20. He did not return.At 10.30 that morning, Siya informed authorities that Ketan had slipped while taking photographs near the Vinchu Kata ridge, an extension of the fort that looks like a scorpion’s tail, and fallen into the valley below. His body was recovered after a three-hour rescue operation. The incident was registered as an accidental death. But Ketan’s father told police that his son was a frequent trekker who knew the terrain well, and that things did not add up.
Vishal Agarwal, father of the deceased Ketan Agarwal.
| Photo Credit:
Emmanual Yogini
“Ketan always played it safe. He never took risks, so it is unlikely that he stepped so close to the edge as to fall over,” said Vishal.That account set in motion an investigation that would over the following days lead Pune Rural Police to allege that Ketan’s death was not an accident but a premeditated murder. Police say it was planned across multiple visits to the fort, and murder had been attempted once before. Siya and her boyfriend Chetan Babulal Chaudhary, 22, have been arrested since.Ketan’s father told the police that the engagement with Siya had taken place in February this year. The families had made arrangements at a considerable scale and cost for the November wedding planned in Jaipur, which was to cost about ₹17 crore, with two private aircraft arranged to ferry guests.What the Agarwal family did not know, according to police, was that Siya had been in a relationship with Chetan Chaudhary, a businessman, for close to a year before the engagement. The two had worked together, said Pune Rural Superintendent of Police Sandeep Singh Gill at a press conference on June 23.
