It was meant to be a pre-birthday surprise. Instead, a day out at Lohagarh Fort near Pune ended with 25-year-old businessman Ketan Agarwal lying dead at the bottom of a gorge. For a while, everyone believed he had simply slipped while taking photos. Now, police say it was murder and that the killer was the woman he was about to marry.
- Ketan Agarwal fell to his death at the fort on 18 June, and it was first ruled an accident.
- His fiancée, Siya Goyal (20), and her lover, Chetan Chaudhary (22), have been arrested.
- The two allegedly pushed Ketan off a cliff and dressed it up as a slip.
- A ₹17 crore destination wedding had been booked at a palace in Udaipur.
- A hidden passport, a hoodie disguise, and earlier failed attempts pointed to a plan.
A Birthday Trip That Ended in Mourning
Ketan, the son of well-known real estate businessman Vishal Agarwal and a director at the family firm, had driven up to the hill fort roughly 50 km from Pune on 18 June. He’d gone to mark the upcoming birthday of his fiancée, Siya Goyal. The couple had got engaged back in February and were due to wed later in the year. Then came the call that changed everything.
Siya rang the police to say Ketan had slipped while clicking photographs and fallen close to 400 feet. His body was pulled from the gorge, and a case of accidental death was logged. As covered by News Watch India, what had been a household buzzing with wedding plans was, within hours, plunged into mourning.
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Family Refused to Believe It
Ketan’s relatives, though, weren’t buying the accident story. They mentioned recent rows between the couple, and that, paired with technical evidence and a few intelligence inputs, was enough to make officers look harder. Siya’s version of events didn’t quite line up with what investigators found at the spot. Her call records and social media threw up red flags, too. The real turning point was a single grainy clip. CCTV caught a man in a hoodie heading up the fort just after the couple had climbed the stairs.
Police worked out it was Chetan Chaudhary, keeping his face down. “A security camera has spotted a suspect in a hoodie climbing the fort after Goyal and Agarwal climbed the fort by stairs. As it was established that it was Chaudhary trying to hide his face and that he was present at Lohagarh Fort at the time of the incident, the probe took a different turn.” “We found that Chaudhary kept his phone at home to avoid being tracked.
He carried the phone of a staffer and was in contact with Goyal on WhatsApp. This shows premeditated attempts to mislead the probe and a well-planned murder conspiracy,” an investigator told The Indian Express.
A Love Triangle Behind the Wedding
Dig into the backstory, and a familiar, ugly shape emerges. Siya and Chetan, both from families in the dry fruit trade, had reportedly been together for around a year before her engagement. Police say she only agreed to the match because her family pushed her into it, and she never wanted to actually go through with the wedding. And what a wedding it was turning out to be.
As Op India reported, the two families had booked a palace in Udaipur, laid on an aircraft to ferry the guests, and set aside a budget said to run to ₹17 crore. Pune Rural police chief Sandeep Singh Gill spelt out the alleged plot without mincing words. “Our probe has revealed that Siya and Chetan were in a relationship. Siya was engaged to Ketan, but she did not want to marry him.
So, she and Chetan hatched a conspiracy. Siya took Ketan to Lohagarh Fort on June 18. Chetan was already there. As the two climbed the hill fort, Chetan followed them. Then he and Siya pushed Ketan off the cliff. We have arrested both of them,” he said.
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Two Trips, a Torn Passport, and a Third Visit That Proved Fatal
The fort wasn’t chosen at random. Siya had brought Ketan there twice before, once on 31 May and again on 14 June and had even called him out on 4 June, though he didn’t turn up that day. The 18 June outing was their third together.
There was the Bali trip, too. The pair were supposed to fly out for a pre-wedding shoot earlier that month and had even reached Mumbai Airport, only to head home when Ketan’s passport vanished. Officers now believe Siya hid it on purpose, allegedly tearing it up and binning it in a hotel room to scupper the trip.
The Chilling Double Face
What makes the whole thing so chilling is how loved-up it all looked. An article by NDTV India described the scene weeks earlier. Ketan blindfolded Siya in the car and handed her flowers, and the two of them danced at a cafe to live music.
She beamed. She hugged him. Their Instagram told the story of a perfect couple. None of it, police say, was real. Both Siya and Chetan now sit in custody, charged with murder and criminal conspiracy, as officers keep pulling apart a plot that was buried beneath a picture-book romance.
Sources & References
- News Watch India – Ketana Aggarwal and Siya Goyal were going to get married soon.
- The Indian Express – It was a well-planned murder conspiracy.
- Op India – Both families booked a palace in Udaipur for the wedding.
- NDTV India – A few weeks ago, Ketan blindfolded Siya in the car and handed her flowers, and the two of them danced at a cafe to live music.
