The last few months have seen emergence of a number of cases where spouses or spouses-to-be have turned to killing their partners (Representational image)
The last few months have seen emergence of a number of cases where spouses or spouses-to-be have turned to killing their partners. Almost all of these cases follow a similar pattern, where a marriage arranged without the consent of at least one partner and a relationship with someone outside the marriage that often continues after the wedding, has led one spouse to kill the other, with the aid and abetment of the third person in the relationship.
Police officers, lawyers and legal commentators tracking these cases say this combination, of a forced or unwanted marriage combined with an existing relationship has become one of the clearest common threads behind a string of high-profile killings over the past year.
In June, Pune businessman Ketan Agarwal, who was about to be marry his fiancée Siya Goyal in a marriage arranged by the two families died during a trek to Lohagad Fort, near Pune, in what was initially reported as an accidental fall. Police later alleged that his fiancée, Goyal, had continued a relationship with a man named Chetan Chaudhary through the engagement, and that the two had planned Agarwal’s death over several months, with Chaudhary pushing him into a gorge while Goyal signalled from nearby. According to police accounts, Chaudhary told investigators that Goyal had felt unable to call off the engagement without bringing shame on her family. A fast-track court has since been set up for the trial.
A similar pattern was seen in the 2025 case of Sonam Raghuvanshi, who married Raja Raghuvanshi in an arranged match before he was killed during their honeymoon near Cherrapunji in Meghalaya. Investigators allege Sonam hired men to carry out the killing and that a man named Raj Kushwaha, with whom she was reportedly involved before the wedding, was linked to the plan.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya district, 22-year-old Pragati Yadav had been in a relationship with Anurag Yadav for four years before her family found out and arranged her marriage to a different man, Dilip. Two weeks after the wedding, Pragati and Anurag are alleged to have hired a contract killer, and Dilip was shot dead in a field. In yet another case from Uttar Pradesh, in Meerut in 2025, Muskan Rastogi and her alleged paramour Sahil Shukla were accused of killing her husband, Saurabh Rajput, and concealing his body. News reports said that Rastogi’s marriage to Rajput was also an arranged one.
Legal commentators have pointed to these cases as forming a pattern rather than isolated incidents. Bhargav Baisoya, a lawyer at Jotwani Associates, a law firm based in Delhi, says that newlywed wives plotting a husband’s murder with the help of a boyfriend is not an entirely new phenomenon, but that its frequency and boldness in recent cases mark a noticeable shift.
The direction is not limited to wives acting against husbands. In a case currently before courts in the United States, a Telangana-origin software engineer, Avinash Narne, has been charged with murdering his wife, Raajitha Sabbineni, in Washington state, with prosecutors alleging he was involved with another woman at the time. Cases of husbands acting against wives in this way are reported less often, but they exist within the same broad pattern of marital conflict combined with an outside relationship.
The role of arranged and forced marriage
In several of these cases, the murder accused had reportedly told a parent or other family member beforehand that they did not want to go ahead with the marriage. Sonam Raghuvanshi is reported to have told her mother that she would not be responsible for what happened once the marriage went ahead. Goyal is reported to have felt that calling off her engagement would bring more dishonour to her family than continuing with it.
Legal and social commentary on these cases has focussed on the pressure that comes from being asked to enter a marriage against one’s own wishes, combined with the social and financial difficulty of seeking a divorce afterwards. In this reading, murder becomes, for a very small number of people, a route out of a marriage that feels less exposing publicly than openly ending an engagement or filing for divorce. This does not amount to a justification for any of these killings, and legal commentary discussing the pattern has been careful to state so directly.
The cases receiving national attention represent a small fraction of a much larger pattern of conflict within Indian marriages, most of which do not result in homicide and rarely reach the courts. The National Family Health Survey-5, based on household interviews conducted in 2019-21, found that 32 pc of ever-married women in India had experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence from their husbands at some point in their marriage.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s Crime in India 2023 report recorded 15,489 cases registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act that year, a rise of roughly 14 pc over the previous year, along with 6,156 dowry deaths. Conviction rates in dowry-related cases are estimated at 11 to 17 pc. More than 83,000 dowry-related cases were still pending trial by the end of 2023, the large majority carried over from earlier years.
While many of the recent cases have been viewed through a legal and social lens, psychologists say the underlying issues often begin much earlier, with unresolved emotional conflicts, poor communication and the inability to navigate relationship breakdowns in a healthy way. Niharika Srivastava a Delhi-based psychologist, says the recent spate of cases points to deeper emotional and psychological issues rather than a single common trigger.
“When I look at these cases as a psychologist, I do not see marriage as the problem. What stands out to me is the inability of some people to process rejection, communicate honestly or make difficult decisions before a crisis develops. Many individuals grow up believing they must satisfy family expectations even at the cost of their own emotional wellbeing. If they enter a marriage they never wanted while remaining emotionally invested in someone else, the conflict can become overwhelming. For most people, that conflict results in stress, anxiety or depression, but for a very small minority with poor emotional regulation and distorted thinking, it may lead to dangerous behaviour. That is why I believe counselling should not begin only after a marriage starts to fail. It should be available before marriage, during major relationship transitions and whenever families are forcing decisions on young adults. We also need to normalise ending an unhealthy relationship instead of treating separation or divorce as a social failure,” Srivastava tells Media India Group.
According to Srivastava these crimes cannot be explained by a single factor such as arranged marriage or extramarital relationships. She says they emerge from a combination of unresolved emotional distress, social pressure, poor conflict-resolution skills and the absence of healthy support systems.
Arif Mistry
In her view, many people continue in relationships they no longer want because they fear disappointing their families or being judged by society. Without counselling or trusted support, emotional frustration can deepen into resentment and irrational decision-making. She adds that while only a tiny fraction of unhappy marriages ever become violent, the recent cases underline the need for stronger mental health services, better family communication and greater public acceptance that leaving an unhappy marriage is a far healthier option than remaining trapped in one.
Arif Mistry, a social activist, has been closely following the recent spate of spousal murder cases that have dominated television screens and social media. Like many Indians, he believes the reasons behind these crimes run deeper than the headlines.
“A reform is underway where parents will stop putting pressure on the girl child and allow her to marry the person of her choice. Whatever choice she makes, she will bear the effect of that, and the family will in no way be responsible for her choices,” Mistry tells Media India Group.
Mistry believes that while social pressures, changing relationships and wider media attention shape the environment in which these crimes occur, the decision to commit murder ultimately comes down to the individual. In his view, personal morality and the ability to rationalise one’s actions are what separate conflict from violence.
“I mainly put it down to individual psychology, because we are all designed differently by God. What I see as wrong might not be seen by someone else as wrong. They will justify their existing circumstances to continue the wrong they are going to commit,” he adds.
According to Mistry, stronger support systems can help address relationship conflicts before they turn violent. He says better communication within families, easier access to counselling and quicker responses to domestic violence complaints can encourage people to seek help instead of allowing tensions to escalate.
“Encourage open communication with the girl child, and policymakers can increase access to counselling services, improve actions on reports of domestic violence, and ensure the girl child is protected through adequate legal representation,” he says.
Beyond legal and social debate, the recent spate of cases has also sparked concern among married couples. Several say the incidents have made them reflect on trust, mutual consent and the need for open communication to prevent relationships from reaching a breaking point.
“When I read about these cases, I don’t become afraid of marriage itself, but I do feel people should never be forced into it. If someone does not want to marry, families should listen instead of worrying about society. A marriage without consent can create resentment, and while nothing can justify murder, many of these tragedies seem to begin with people feeling they have no way to say no,” Suriya Wani, 32-years-old resident of Kupwara, Baramulla in Jammu & Kashmir, tells Media India Group.
For Aman Verma, a 35-year-old South Delhi resident who works at a call centre firm Teleperformance and has been married for five years, the recent cases have been deeply unsettling.
“I have been married for five years, and honestly, these cases are frightening because they make you wonder how relationships can reach such an extreme. They do make me feel concerned, but they also remind me that trust, honesty and open communication are essential in any marriage. If two people are unhappy together, ending the relationship through separation or divorce is always better than letting resentment turn into something far more tragic,” Verma tells Media India Group.
