Pune murder | A bizarre plot

For Punekars, the Lohagad fort on the city’s outskirts has always been an attraction, with its easy hike up the hill and breathtaking views of the Sahyadris. Beginning this June, it has acquired another lure: a cliff on the fort’s edges from where city-based realtor, Ketan Agarwal, was allegedly pushed to his death by fiance Siya Goyal and her friend Chetan Chaudhary. Footfalls at the fort have surged and everyone now wants a peek at the gorge from the now-notorious ‘Siya Point’.

It was a hot morning on June 18, when Siya and Ketan trekked up the hill to the fort. The two were engaged and scheduled to tie the knot in about six months, on November 25. But Siya evidently had other plans, as she and Chetan allegedly pushed Ketan into a 400-foot gorge. While Chetan made a getaway, Siya raised an alarm, claiming that Ketan had slipped and fallen. Rescuers recovered his body later, and the case was registered as an accidental death. Ketan’s parents, the Agarwals, even told officials at the Lonavala Rural police station that they did not suspect foul play as they and the Goyals had known each other for decades and were distantly related. But the incident raised several red flags for the police, which prompted the investigation. “The case raised many doubts,” says Sandeep Singh Gill, superintendent of police, Pune Rural, “especially since no such accident has ever occurred at Lohagadthe place is considered quite safe.”

On June 21, a police officer tracking the couple’s movements from the CCTV footage at the fort noticed something unusual—a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt despite the 33-degree summer heat was hovering around them at the ticketing counter and seemed to be communicating with Siya through hand gestures. “The man was wearing headphones over his hoodie, which is unusual if you are listening to music. The camouflage element was evident,” claims Gill.

Then there were Siya’s conflicting statements on how it all happened. She first told the police that Ketan accidentally slipped while the couple were taking photographs near the edge of the fort amid strong gusts of wind (the police found no photographs taken at Lohagad on Ketan's phone). Later, she claimed they had stopped to rest after the climb, and Ketan lost his balance while handing her a bottle of water. All this was enough for the police to launch a confidential investigation. By then, Ketan’s family, too, had begun voicing their suspicions. On June 23, the Pune police arrested Siya and Chetan and remanded them to judicial custody.

A MATCH MADE IN...

It was in February that intermediaries and relatives had proposed a marriage between Ketan, the son of city-based realtor Vishal Agarwal, and Siya, the daughter of Pravin Goyal, a wholesale dealer of dry fruits and masalas at the Pune marketyard. The Goyals and Agarwals had known each other since the 1980s when the latter ran a wholesale business of groceries and dry fruits at the Tuljapur pilgrimage centre in Dharashiv (Osmanabad), some 450 km from Mumbai. Ketan’s great-grandfather Kisanlal would stay with the Goyals when he visited Pune to purchase goods from them. Kisanlal’s son Devichand—Ketan’s grandfather—shifted to Pune two decades ago. The family had got into the warehousing and real estate business, and had done well for themselves.

Ketan, who had earned his master’s degree from the US, was chief marketing officer of Success Group, the family’s real estate firm. The extended family, including father Vishal’s two brothers, lived in an upscale, 45-acre gated community at Gahunje, off the arterial Mumbai-Pune expressway. Grandfather Devichand, who was suffering from a terminal illness, is said to have doted on Ketan, the most educated of his grandchildren, and wanted to see him married off in his lifetime, the reason the Agarwals were eager to find a bride for him. (Shattered by the turn of events, Devichand died on July 4).

According to Siya’s relatives, the marriage talks briefly stalled when it was revealed that the boy was balding and used a hair patch, and also had a slight stutter. Siya, who was educated in an elite school in Pune, is said to have dropped out of a reputed city college after failing Standard XII. A keen baker, she was running a patisserie business from home. After checking Ketan’s profile online and meeting him, matters were smoothed out and the two families got together for a glitzy engagement party at a 5-star hotel in Pune on February 19. Photographs from the engagement ceremony and subsequent videos now surfacing on social media show the couple beaming. The marriage was planned for November, at a resort in Udaipur, Rajasthan. “There was no indication she was unhappy with the match,” says Krishnakumar Goyal, president of the Agarwal Samaj Federation’s Pune chapter and a common acquaintance of the two families. Siya would visit her future in-laws and bring cakes and bouquets, he adds.

THE OTHER MAN

Chetan and Siya are said to have met at a local cricket tournament in 2025. A BBA student, Chetan was a cricketer like Siya’s elder brother Sahil and an acquaintance of his. Chetan’s family, who were from Rajasthan, also have a semi-wholesale grocery shop in the same marketyard where Siya’s father has a store. A relative of the Goyals claims Sahil had at some point confronted the two about their relationship, but they denied it, with Siya even offering to tie a rakhi on Chetan.

The police are now trying to piece together the details that are coming out to establish the connection between the two. Siya is said to have asked Ketan’s uncle around a month-and-a-half ago if the marriage could be postponed for a year. A purported screenshot of a May 25 Snapchat conversation is being examined: it has Siya asking a friend to send her Aadhaar card so that flight tickets could be booked for the wedding “which was never going to happen” . The police also say Siya and Chetan exchanged 2,004 phone calls between January and June.

On June 6, Ketan and sister Sanjana, along with Siya and brother Sahil, were scheduled to fly to Bali for a pre-wedding shoot. But, at the Mumbai airport, Ketan’s passport was found missing from his bag (Siya is now suspected of disposing of it too). This had led to some tensions and, in his statement to the police, Ketan’s father Vishal alleged that post their return, his son told him that Siya and he often argued over minor issues.

THE LURE OF LOHAGAD

Siya and Ketan visited Lohagad together on May 31, where the idea for the murder is said to have first occurred to her. She allegedly wanted the two of them to visit the fort again on June 4, but Ketan’s mother shot down the plan. They did, eventually, go to the fort again on June 14 when, according to the police, Siya made an attempt on Ketan’s life by pushing him near a precipice. Ketan apparently saved himself by holding on to a tree. Siya had then claimed that she acted to save him from a snake. A police investigator says they asked Ketan’s mother and sister why he revisited the fort on June 14 and 18. “Ketan told them that after her request on June 4 was turned down, Siya had cried and thrown a tantrum. He told his family that since Siya was celebrating her 20th birthday on June 19 in Mahabaleshwar, her friends had decided to surprise her with an excursion to Lohagad the previous day,” says the officer.

Meanwhile, the police say Siya and Chetan met in a coffee shop at Lullanagar on June 17, where they allegedly searched for videos of the fort, downloaded maps of Lohagad from Google Earth, and used AI tools to decide the modus operandi and select a secluded location. The two apparently also used a spot near the cafe to practise how to push the victim off the cliff. The police say they have recovered three mobile phones (two belonging to Siya) and were currently analysing 355 GB of data. The two accused also allegedly tried to rope in Chetan’s classmate who works in a private company at Balewadi in Pune, but he turned them down, says the police.

On June 18, Siya and Ketan trekked up to the fort, with Chetan allegedly following close behind. The police say Siya sat on the ground, a signal for Chetan to rush in and push Ketan. In the event, both of them reportedly pushed the victim to his death. The police traced Chetan’s mobile number, but found that his mobile data was off from 7 am to 5:40 pm on June 18. The phone was only used to receive calls. “We asked callers about who had answered the calls. They said it was the worker in his shop,” says a police officer. SP Gill believes Chetan swapped the phones with a worker in their shop to create an alibi for himself.

The police version of the sequence of events goes like this: Chetan rides his two-wheeler to the fort, climbs to the summit with the hoodie on to avoid being identified by Ketan, pushes or helps push the victim down the cliff, returns to the base, and leaves. According to this version, he completed the trek up and down the fort in just 48 minutes. Investigators estimate he spent 8-10 minutes at the summit, a window they believe was sufficient to execute the murder. Chetan’s lawyer Ram Shahane, though, is unconvinced. “My client has been falsely implicated in the case. The account about the hoodie and the mobile phone was cooked up by the police, and is not proven by concrete evidence,” says Shahane.

FAMILY CONCERNS

Ketan’s father Vishal, too, has in retrospect made a number of allegations in his statement to the police. This includes his late son’s fears that Siya was having an affair after their first trip to Lohagad, and her constant references to ‘friend Chetan’. Siya had also visited Ketan’s house after the funeral, when his sister Sanjana reportedly questioned her on the sequence of events. Her evasive answers and the fact that she wasn’t ‘grieving enough’ also apparently raised suspicions in the family.

On the other side, Siya’s father Pravin Goyal says he had no inkling of his daughter’s relationship with Chetan. “Had I known, I would have taken action...but it did not come to my notice at all,” he says. “If my daughter is guilty, then hang herbut at least give her a chance to defend herself. It is the court that must decide on her guilt.” Defence lawyer Vipul Dushing, who is representing Siya, says, “There is no motive, the case is based on inferential prosecution...mostly the suspicions of the victim’s parents.” There were no witnesses to the crime, and mere suspicion cannot be a substitute for conclusive evidence, he points out.

The media coverage of the case has also put pressure on the police and the administration. Ketan’s father Vishal met Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on June 26, seeking a speedy trial. The state has now moved the trial to a fast-track court and appointed high-profile lawyer and BJP Rajya Sabha member Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor. Meanwhile, the authorities are looking for evidence to build a watertight case. “There were 208 people at the fort at the time of the murder. We are hoping someone may have captured some incriminating photographic evidence,” says a police official involved with the investigation.