A newlywed woman from Indore who had disappeared with her husband on their honeymoon in Meghalaya surfaced at an Uttar Pradesh dhaba on Sunday night and is being held as prime accused in her husband’s murder, police said.

Sonam Raghuvanshi and her alleged lover Raj Singh Khushwaha are suspected to have plotted the murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi, East Khasi Hills district superintendent of police Vivek Syiem told the media in Shillong.

Syiem said Khushwaha is suspected to have hired the contract killers.

Khushwaha and three other suspects — Vishal Singh Chauhan, 19, Akash Rajput, 22, and Anand Kurmi, 21 — have been arrested, the Meghalaya police said.

A special investigation team (SIT) of the Meghalaya police, with help from Indore police, arrested Akash from Lalitpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Vishal and Khushwaha from Indore on Sunday, and Anand from Basahari (Madhya Pradesh) on Monday afternoon, Syiem said.

Another accused has been detained, he added.

Sonam, 25, and Raja, 30, had an arranged marriage on May 11. They left Indore on May 20 and arrived at Sohra town of Meghalaya on May 22 on a rented scooty.

The couple disappeared the next day. Their rented scooty was found abandoned near a cafe on the Shillong-Sohra road on May 24.

Raja’s decomposed body was spotted on June 2 with the help of a drone. It lay in a deep gorge near the Wei Sawdong waterfalls in Sohra, about 25km from where the scooty was found. He had been killed with a machete, which had been bought in Guwahati and was recovered on June 3, the police said.

Around 1.30am on Monday, a woman turned up at a dhaba in the Nandganj area of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh “in a bewildered condition”, Ghazipur city superintendent of police Gyananendra Nath Prasad said.

“She identified herself as Sonam Raghuvanshi, wife of Raja Raghuvanshi from Indore, but didn’t tell us anything else. She is repeatedly asking us to make a call to her brother,” Prasad said.

An Uttar Pradesh police source said the woman had been admitted to hospital “because she was mentally unstable at the moment”.

Sahil Yadav, owner of the Kashi Chai Zayaka dhaba, told reporters: “The woman arrived around 1.30am and asked for my mobile phone to talk to her brother. She looked disturbed.

“I gave her my mobile phone on which she spoke to someone while crying. Then a man, who identified himself as her brother, called me and suggested that I inform the police. I called the police.”

A statement from the Meghalaya police said Sonam had “voluntarily surrendered at the Nandganj police station in Ghazipur district, Uttar Pradesh, and is currently in the safe custody of the Uttar Pradesh Police”.

“Necessary legal protocols are being followed for her transit and formal statement,” it added.

At a joint news conference with the police in Shillong, Meghalaya tourism minister Paul Lyngdoh spoke of a “love triangle” behind Raja’s murder.

With the couple’s disappearance and the discovery of Raja’s body raising a scare about tourist safety in Meghalaya, the overnight developments have come as a relief for the Meghalaya administration.

Chief minister Conrad Sangma congratulated the state police for their “major breakthrough” within a week of the body’s discovery.

Some citizens’ bodies, prominent citizens and tourism industry representatives condemned the “disinformation” spread against the state and its police force in connection with the case.

Three teams, together making up about 50 people, were involved in the searchfor the couple, backed by sniffer dogs, drones, the police’s special operations team and villagers from the Weisawdong, Nongriat and Mawlakhiat areas.