How an arrest has given fresh twist to Ketan Agarwal murder case

The Pune Rural police, in a fresh twist to the sensational Ketan Agarwal murder case, have arrested a friend of the co-accused Chetan Chaudhary for his alleged role in the conspiracy. Ketan, a Pune-based realtor, was allegedly pushed to death by his fiance Siya Goyal and her friend Chetan on June 18 from the Lohagad Fort near Pune.

According to the police, Siya (20) and Ketan (25) had trekked to the fort that morning. The two were scheduled to tie the knot on November 25. But those plans ended in a tragedy after Ketan was allegedly pushed from the fort into a gorge, around 400 feet deep. After Chetan made a quick getaway, Siya raised an alarm claiming that Ketan had slipped and fallen. Rescuers recovered his body and a case of accidental death was registered, before the conspiracy unravelled and Siya and Chetan were arrested.

Sandeep Singh Gill, superintendent of police, Pune Rural, said that Hange (23), who was Chetan’s friend, was arrested for his alleged role in hatching the conspiracy. Hange is the third person to be arrested in the case. He is in police custody till September 12.

Another senior police officer said they had waited to connect the dots and collect “concrete evidence”, such as chats and electronic evidence, pointing to Hange’s role in the conspiracy before arresting him.

Hange, who hails from the Marathwada region, works in a private firm in Balewadi near Pune. A police officer who is part of the investigations corroborated this and added that while Hange was not at the murder scene, he was involved in hatching the plan. Siya and Chetan allegedly asked him to accompany them to the fort, but he backed out.

A MURDER MOST FOUL

Ketan was the son of Vishal Agarwal and Siya the daughter of Pravin Goyal, a wholesaler of dry fruits and masalas at the Pune market yard. The Goyals and Agarwals knew each other since the 1980s when the Agarwals ran a wholesale business selling groceries and dry-fruits at the pilgrimage centre of Tuljapur in Dharashiv district (formerly Osmanabad).

Ketan’s great-grandfather Kisanlal would stay with the Goyals when he visited Pune to purchase goods from them. The Agarwals shifted to Pune two decades ago and later ventured into real-estate via warehousing.

Ketan, who had completed his master’s degree from the United States, worked as the chief marketing officer of the family’s real-estate firm Success Group. Vishal and his extended family lived in a 45-acre gated community at Gahunje off the arterial Mumbai- Pune expressway.

Siya, who was educated in an elite school at Kondhwa, is said to have dropped out of a reputed city college after Class 12. Siya checked Ketan’s profile online and decided to meet him. They decided to tie the knot and even had a small engagement ceremony on February 11, said Siya’s relative. This was followed by a glitzy engagement at a five-star hotel in Pune on February 19. They were to marry in a lavish ceremony in a resort at Udaipur in Rajasthan.

THE CHETAN ANGLE

Late in 2025, Siya is said to have met Chetan, whose family hails from Rajasthan and has a wholesale business in groceries, at a local cricket tournament. Chetan was a cricketer like Siya’s elder brother Sahil (25), and the two were acquaintances. When confronted by Sahil about their relationship, the two had denied it, a relative had said. Siya seemed to have been unable to come to terms with her impending marriage, after which Chetan may have re-entered her life.

Siya is said to have asked Ketan’s uncle around a month-and-half before the murder if the marriage could be postponed by a year, said the police officer. A purported screenshot of a May 25 Snapchat conversation in Hindi has Siya asking her friend to send her Aadhaar card to book flight tickets for her wedding “which was never going to happen”.

According to Gill, Siya and Chetan had exchanged 2,004 phone calls between January and June, and conversed for nearly 238 hours.

“Siya was seeking validation from her parents. She wanted to be a ‘good girl’ in the eyes of her father by accepting the match. But she also wanted to avoid the marriage. She seemed to be vacillating between these two choices,” a police officer had earlier told INDIA TODAY.

On June 6, Ketan, his sister Sanjana, Siya and Sahil were scheduled to fly to Bali for a pre-wedding shoot. At the Mumbai airport, Ketan’s passport was found missing from his bag and it is suspected to have been disposed of by Siya. In his statement to the police, Vishal said that after returning home, Ketan told him that Siya often argued with him on minor issues. The missing passport added another element of suspicion to the story.

THE CRIME

Siya and Ketan visited Lohagad Fort on May 31, where the idea for the murder is said to have germinated in her mind. She insisted on the two returning to the site on June 4, an idea that Ketan’s mother shot down. They, however, went to the fort on June 14.

Ketan’s mother and sister told investigators that Siya had thrown a tantrum after her June 4 request was turned down, and this prompted Ketan to visit the fort on June 14 and 18.

Siya and Chetan are said to have met at a coffee shop at Lullanagar, where the conspiracy is alleged to have been discussed. They also searched for videos of the fort, downloaded maps of Lohagad from Google Earth, and used AI to decide the modus operandi and a secluded location. The police said they had recovered three mobile phones and were analysing 355 GB worth of data.

According to the police, on June 18, Siya and Ketan trekked up the fort, with Chetan following them. Siya sat on the ground, which was a signal for Chetan, and the two may have pushed Ketan to his death.

When the police began working on the Chetan angle, they tracked his mobile number and realised that from 7 am to 5:40 pm on the fateful day, his mobile data was off and that the number had received only incoming calls. To create an alibi for himself, Chetan had allegedly swapped his phone with that of a worker in their shop.

Chetan is alleged to have climbed the fort with a hoodie to avoid being identified by Ketan, who had interacted twice with him on video call as Siya’s friend. When rescuers recovered Ketan’s body, a police constable tried to console Siya saying that he was alive. “Siya was taken aback and looked scared,” a senior official had said.

On June 21, a police officer tracking CCTV footage at the fort noticed something unusual—a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt on a summer day. The hoodie was worn like a ‘ghoongat’ (veil) over his face. He was also wearing a headphone over his hoodie, which came across as an attempt at camouflaging identity.

The cops focused their attention on this man, who was hovering around Siya and Ketan at the ticketing counter. He also seemed to be communicating with Siya subtly using sign language, an officer claimed.

After the incriminating CCTV footage was recovered, the police launched their confidential investigations. The family too expressed their suspicions. Vishal had visited the site with his relatives and friends three days after the accident, and realised that it was not easy for someone to slip and fall into the gorge from there. Vishal said their suspicions were heightened after Siya’s statements and suspicious behaviour after the death.

Vishal had met Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis seeking a speedy trial. The Agarwals had to deal with another tragedy as family patriarch Devichand passed away on July 4.

The footfalls at the fort had surged after the murder and its coverage in the media, and the spot was gradually being renamed ‘Siya Point’ in popular parlance. The police are expected to file the chargesheet in the case this month.

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