On May 11, 2025, Raja Raghuvanshi, a 29-year-old resident of Indore, tied the knot with Sonam Verma, a woman he had reportedly known for some time. Just days later, the newlyweds left for their honeymoon in Meghalaya, a scenic choice echoing the start of what should have been a new chapter in their lives. But within weeks, Raja’s lifeless body was discovered deep in a gorge near Wei Sawdong Falls in Cherrapunji. His wife, Sonam, was arrested a week after – not as a grieving widow, but as the alleged mastermind behind his murder, having reportedly conspired with hired killers before the honeymoon even began.
The incident made national headlines, yet the news cycle moved on swiftly. The silence that followed was not just jarring – it was telling.
This wasn’t the first time such a case had emerged. Nor, tragically, is it likely to be the last.
While conversations around domestic violence have rightfully amplified protections for women over the past decades, a growing body of recent cases suggests another, often ignored side to the issue: brutalities against men – especially newly married men – at the hands of their spouses or their spouses’ accomplices. From Meerut to Bengaluru, and now to Meghalaya, India is witnessing a disturbing pattern of violence against men in intimate relationships, many of whom are caught unaware, emotionally manipulated, or silenced by societal stigma.
This story is not an attempt to discount the violence faced by women – but to shed light on an often invisible crisis: male victims of domestic violence and marital betrayal, many of whom never live to tell their side.
In this explainer, we break down the Raja Raghuvanshi case, explore similar chilling incidents across India, examine why violence against men remains underreported, and look at the legal, societal, and psychological blind spots that keep this conversation in the shadows.
What is the Raja Raghuvanshi Murder Case?
Raja Raghuvanshi, 29, was a resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Known to be soft-spoken and mild-mannered, Raja had recently started a new chapter in his life. On May 11, 2025, he married Sonam Verma, a 25-year-old woman from the same city. The wedding, by all accounts, was uneventful and traditional. Less than two weeks later, the couple left for a honeymoon trip to Meghalaya, a destination known for its natural beauty and serenity, far from the chaos of central India.
They arrived in the northeast around May 20, and checked into a homestay in Cherrapunji, a popular tourist spot in the East Khasi Hills district. But by May 23, something had gone wrong. CCTV footage showed the couple leaving the homestay early that morning, but by evening, both of their phones had been switched off. Local residents later found the rented two-wheeler parked near the famous Wei Sawdong Falls — a three-tiered waterfall nestled deep within a forested gorge.
With no trace of the couple, a missing person report was filed, and police launched a search operation in the surrounding area. Days turned into weeks. On June 2, 2025, Raja’s decomposed body was discovered at the base of the gorge — roughly 300 feet deep. There were clear signs of foul play. The romantic getaway had become a crime scene.
What came next shocked even seasoned investigators.
According to Meghalaya Director General of Police (DGP) Idashisha Nongrang, the police uncovered a chilling conspiracy: Sonam, Raja’s wife, had allegedly orchestrated the murder. Acting on leads, including information from a local guide who had grown suspicious, police arrested four individuals, all believed to be part of a murder-for-hire plot initiated by Sonam before the couple even left Indore.
Among those arrested was Sonam’s ex-boyfriend, with whom she had allegedly maintained contact even after marriage. Investigators believe the motive involved a combination of emotional manipulation, past relationship entanglements, and premeditated intent to eliminate Raja during the honeymoon.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to probe the murder has since confirmed that Raja was lured to the isolated waterfall under the pretext of sightseeing, and there, he was allegedly pushed or thrown into the gorge. The killers had hoped the rugged terrain would conceal the crime long enough for them to escape detection. What they didn’t anticipate was a vigilant local, inconsistencies in Sonam’s account, and the increasing digital footprint that would lead authorities straight to the accused.
As of now, Sonam and four others have been arrested and are in custody. Investigators continue to gather digital and forensic evidence to strengthen the case for trial. The police have not ruled out the possibility of more people being involved or of deeper financial motivations, given the calculated nature of the crime.
But one fact stands clear: this was not a moment of rage, but a cold, calculated execution of a man who likely had no idea that the person he trusted the most would become the architect of his death.
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Recent Similar Cases to Raja Raghuvanshi’s That Sparked Protests and Public Debate
The murder of Raja Raghuvanshi is not a standalone tragedy. In recent months, a troubling number of similar incidents have surfaced — cases that paint a chilling portrait of betrayal, manipulation, and in many instances, premeditated violence against men within marriages and intimate relationships.
Saurabh Rajput Murder Case – Meerut, Uttar Pradesh
In April 2025, 26-year-old Saurabh Rajput, a merchant navy officer from Meerut, was brutally murdered in one of the most chilling domestic crimes in recent memory. Initially reported missing, his body was later found in a cement drum. The investigation revealed that he had been killed by his partner Muskan and her boyfriend, Sahil.
According to police and media reports, Muskan first sedated Saurabh, slit his throat while he was unconscious, Sahil later beheaded him. The murder was reportedly premeditated, with Muskan and Sahil living together after the crime. The details shocked the nation, particularly due to the brutality and the apparent ease with which the act was executed. The case triggered online outrage and discussions about the vulnerability of men in domestic settings.
Bijnor Railway Employee Murder Case
In early 2025, a man in Bijnor was murdered by his wife just three months into their marriage. The woman, as per police reports, gave her husband sleeping pills and later strangled him to death. She then tried to stage the murder as a natural death. The motive, as uncovered by investigators, involved her ongoing relationship with another man.
This case mirrored the disturbing pattern seen in other instances – of betrayal by a spouse, premeditated murder, and emotional manipulation. The story received brief local coverage but failed to make headlines nationally, despite the gravity of the crime.
Bengaluru Techie Suicide – Atul Subhash Case
In 2024, Atul Subhash, a 31-year-old software engineer from Bengaluru, died by suicide, leaving behind a detailed note in which he alleged prolonged emotional harassment by his wife. His death shocked the tech community and was widely discussed on social media platforms, especially among working professionals who saw the incident as a reflection of unacknowledged domestic struggles faced by men.
According to reports, Atul had attempted to seek legal help earlier but was allegedly ignored. The case gained traction after it was linked to broader concerns about mental health and systemic blind spots when it comes to male victims of domestic abuse.
TCS Manager’s On-Camera Suicide – The Manav Sharma Case
In another distressing case, Manav Sharma, a project manager at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), took his own life in early 2025 after recording a video detailing the emotional trauma he faced due to his wife’s alleged extramarital affair. In the video, which went viral posthumously, Manav appealed to society and lawmakers to “please think about men too,” citing his emotional breakdown and feeling of helplessness.
His final words resonated with thousands online, sparking hashtags like #JusticeForManav and #MenToo. However, despite the widespread digital response, there has been little clarity on follow-up investigations or institutional acknowledgment.
These are not isolated incidents. When examined together, they begin to form a pattern of a growing crisis hidden behind the walls of domestic life, where men too are victims of betrayal, emotional abuse, and, in some cases, fatal violence.
Yet, a striking commonality runs through these stories: public outrage is brief, institutional follow-up is weak, and the narrative is often lost in the noise. In each case, the male victims either did not survive to tell their story or were silenced by a system unequipped to acknowledge their suffering.
Why Violence Against Men Rarely Makes Headlines
Despite the gravity of these crimes, violence against men in domestic spaces is frequently met with silence or disbelief. Several structural and societal reasons contribute to why such cases are underreported, under-investigated, and underrepresented in mainstream discourse.
1. Societal Conditioning and Masculinity Myths
From a young age, men are conditioned to “tough it out” — to suppress vulnerability and endure emotional or physical hardship without complaint. Victimhood, especially in domestic settings, is seen as a contradiction to masculinity. This cultural narrative fosters shame among male victims and discourages them from speaking up, even in the face of severe abuse.
2. Institutional Bias and Media Neglect
The default narrative in cases of domestic violence often casts men as aggressors and women as victims. While this is statistically supported in many contexts, it leaves little room to acknowledge men as potential victims. Law enforcement officers may dismiss male complaints, and the media — driven by long-standing gender tropes — may ignore such stories altogether, deeming them unrelatable or incongruent with public expectations.
3. Legal Gaps and Lack of Support Systems
India’s legal framework on domestic violence is not gender-neutral. The Domestic Violence Act, 2005, explicitly recognizes women as victims and men as perpetrators. While Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code addresses cruelty by husbands or their families, there is no equivalent provision to protect men from similar harm. Consequently, male victims have few legal avenues to seek help or justice.
4. Data Deficiency and Underreporting
There is a glaring absence of official data on male victims of domestic abuse. Most national crime reports either omit such statistics or fail to collect them in the first place. This lack of data feeds into the perception that violence against men is rare or insignificant, making advocacy for change even more difficult.
Until society recognises that men too can be victims — and that their pain is real, worthy of acknowledgment, and deserving of justice — these tragedies will continue in the shadows, with only the most sensational cases briefly breaking through the surface.
Global Cases of Brutalities against Men Reflect the Same Pattern
The phenomenon of domestic violence against men isn’t unique to India. Around the world, similar stories have emerged—some making headlines, others quietly archived as statistical anomalies. But taken together, they paint a clearer picture: when men become victims of intimate partner violence, societies often struggle to process, report, or respond appropriately.
United Kingdom
In the UK, domestic violence is legally defined in gender-neutral terms, but implementation remains uneven. According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), about one in three domestic abuse victims are men, with 757,000 male victims reported in 2020 alone. Charities like Mankind Initiative have highlighted how male victims often face disbelief or ridicule when seeking help. Even with legal protection on paper, social stigma and institutional neglect remain strong deterrents to justice.
United States
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 1 in 9 men experience severe physical violence from an intimate partner. While the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard case drew global attention to male victimhood, experts caution against treating celebrity cases as outliers. In several U.S. states, shelters for male domestic violence survivors are either non-existent or underfunded, leaving many victims with nowhere to turn.
Australia
Australia’s Personal Safety Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that 1 in 16 men have experienced violence from a current or former partner. Despite this, resources for men are still scarce, and public conversation often skews toward female victimhood. In 2022, a Melbourne-based study noted that male survivors frequently reported feeling isolated, ashamed, and unsupported.
France and Japan
In France, growing media attention has been paid to male victims, particularly around mental health deterioration, coercion, and even suicide linked to toxic marriages and custody battles. In Japan, a 2017 case gained brief international coverage when a woman fatally stabbed her husband after repeated suspicions of infidelity. The court later acknowledged the emotional abuse endured by the man but public reaction was largely muted.
Canada
Canadian government data suggests that nearly 1 in 5 victims of police-reported intimate partner violence are male. Advocacy groups like the Canadian Centre for Men and Families argue that systemic gaps in services and support continue to place men at a disadvantage.
Despite differences in legal systems and cultural norms, these international examples mirror India’s growing pattern: domestic violence against men is real, underreported, and often trivialized. The societal scripts that define men as perpetual aggressors and women as default victims obscure the full spectrum of domestic abuse—and, in doing so, leave many to suffer in silence.
Legal Blind Spots in Domestic Violence Law
India’s current legal framework for domestic violence was built to address a very real and historic issue: the abuse of women in patriarchal households. However, in its unidirectional approach, it has left little room for men who face abuse, violence, or manipulation at the hands of their spouses.
The Limits of Section 498A IPC
Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, introduced in 1983, criminalizes cruelty by a husband or his relatives toward a woman. While it has served as a vital shield for countless women, its gender-specific nature excludes any recourse for male victims of similar cruelty.
This legal asymmetry often leads to situations where even when men are subjected to psychological or physical abuse, they have no law under which to register a complaint specifically aimed at protecting their rights as domestic abuse victims.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
India’s Domestic Violence Act is similarly gender-specific, designed to protect women from a wide range of abuses — physical, emotional, sexual, and economic. While progressive in its intent, the law does not acknowledge the possibility of men suffering from these same forms of abuse.
Men seeking legal protection often have to rely on general sections of the IPC, such as assault or criminal intimidation, which fail to capture the domestic and emotional nuance of their experience.
The Call for Gender-Neutral Laws
There have been growing calls from legal experts, psychologists, and civil society groups to amend domestic violence laws to be gender-neutral. Proponents argue that domestic violence is not the prerogative of any one gender — and laws should reflect that reality.
Critics, however, worry that making such laws gender-neutral may dilute the protection currently afforded to women, especially in rural or underprivileged areas where domestic abuse remains rampant.
International Perspectives: A Comparative Glance
- United Kingdom: The UK’s Domestic Abuse Act, 2021 is gender-neutral, applying to “any person” who is subjected to abuse by a current or former partner.
- United States: Various states have laws that allow men to file domestic violence complaints and access restraining orders.
- Canada and Australia: Both countries have gender-neutral domestic violence frameworks that recognize male victims explicitly.
India, in contrast, continues to lack parallel mechanisms — leaving male victims legally invisible.
Legal reform need not come at the cost of protections for women. Rather, it must be based on the core principle of justice for all, ensuring that victims of abuse — irrespective of gender — are heard, believed, and protected.
The Psychological Toll and Media Apathy
Behind the statistics and sensational headlines lie the quieter, devastating consequences that male victims of domestic violence endure—often alone. Emotional manipulation, betrayal, gaslighting, and humiliation don’t leave visible bruises, but their scars run deep. When these patterns culminate in violence or suicide, the underlying trauma has often gone unacknowledged for years.
Many men in abusive relationships report symptoms of chronic anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation—but their cries for help are frequently ignored. Helplines are limited. Mental health professionals may overlook abuse as a cause. And friends or family, guided by stereotypes, often advise men to “man up” or dismiss their pain as weakness.
This cultural blindness is compounded by media narratives that either sensationalise male victimhood or, more often, sideline it. While cases like Saurabh Rajput and Manav Sharma did receive temporary attention, they rarely led to lasting discussions on policy or support infrastructure. Instead, coverage fades quickly, replaced by stories that reinforce conventional tropes.
When men die by suicide and leave behind video evidence blaming emotional or physical abuse by a partner—as in the cases of Atul Subhash and Manav Sharma—the conversation momentarily shifts, but rarely transforms into institutional action. There are no national campaigns, no emergency shelters for abused men, no government-backed programs tailored to their needs.
This silence is not neutral—it actively contributes to suffering. A lack of visibility means a lack of empathy, which in turn perpetuates the cycle of neglect and denial. Until society acknowledges that men, too, can be broken by toxic relationships and domestic cruelty, we risk failing half the population in our understanding of intimate partner violence.
What Needs to Change: Toward Gender-Neutral Laws and Support Systems
If the cases of Raja Raghuvanshi, Saurabh Rajput, Manav Sharma, and countless unnamed others teach us anything, it’s this: India—and the world—urgently needs a broader, more inclusive understanding of domestic violence. This includes acknowledging male victimhood not as a statistical anomaly but as a systemic blind spot that legal, medical, and social institutions must address.
1. Legal Reform Must Be Gender-Neutral
Domestic violence laws must focus on the act of violence, not the gender of the perpetrator. Just as women deserve comprehensive protection, so do men. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, while groundbreaking for women’s rights, needs either expansion or a parallel statute that provides similar protections for men. Legal language matters. It shapes how police respond, how judges rule, and how victims are perceived.
Several countries, including the UK, Australia, and Canada, have adopted gender-neutral frameworks without compromising protections for women. India can—and should—move in the same direction.
2. Data Collection and Research
India lacks a systematic approach to tracking domestic violence against men. Without data, there is no visibility, and without visibility, there can be no policy response. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) must begin documenting instances of abuse faced by men in domestic settings. Only then can meaningful intervention be designed.
3. Dedicated Support Systems
There is an urgent need for helplines, legal aid centers, mental health support, and shelters for male victims of domestic violence. Today, most of these services are tailored exclusively for women, leaving men with few or no options. Creating even a modest infrastructure for male survivors would be a significant step toward equity.
4. Media and Cultural Responsibility
Mainstream media must move beyond the occasional shock-value coverage of male victimhood. These are not isolated horror stories but part of a disturbing pattern. Media organisations have a responsibility to highlight both the prevalence and the silence surrounding this issue, and to push for accountability—legal and cultural.
Similarly, educational campaigns should evolve. Domestic violence awareness drives in schools, colleges, and workplaces must be inclusive and non-gendered, focusing on respect, consent, and boundaries, regardless of gender.
5. Destigmatizing Male Vulnerability
At its core, this problem is cultural. From a young age, boys are taught to suppress pain, to endure suffering, and to never show weakness. These messages become barriers to seeking help. Changing this requires a societal shift in how we define masculinity, moving from stoicism to emotional openness and vulnerability.
Conclusion: A Shared Battle for Justice
Acknowledging violence against men is not a step backward for women’s rights—it is a step forward for human rights. Justice and empathy are not finite resources. They must extend to every victim, regardless of gender.
As Raja Raghuvanshi’s family mourns an unimaginable loss, and as Atul Subhash and Manav Sharma are remembered through their final words, society must ask itself: How many more silent cries must be ignored before we start listening?
At The Peak View Stories, we remain committed to shining a light on stories that matter – even the ones many would rather not see. As we continue tracking this developing issue and any potential legal reforms, we’ll keep asking the uncomfortable questions. Because silence is not neutrality – it’s complicity.
If you’ve witnessed or experienced such cases and want to share your story, reach out to us confidentially. The conversation must begin somewhere.
Disclaimer: This article aims to shed light on unreported cases of violence against men without undermining or diluting the gravity of violence faced by women. Domestic abuse is a universal issue, not limited by gender. Our commitment is to truth, empathy, and justice – for all.