PUNE: A security guard posted at Lohagad Fort’s ticket counter on the morning of June 18 may have been among the last people to observe all three key figures in the Ketan Agarwal murder case — and what he saw, pieced together in hindsight, captures the cold choreography of a killing hiding in plain sight. Dheeraj Jadhav, a guard at the fort, recalled that Siya Goyal and Ketan Agarwal arrived together first. The couple tried to book entry tickets online at the counter but were told the network was better higher up the fort. Staff asked them to photograph the QR scanner, pay at the top, and show proof on their way back. Minutes later, a second visitor arrived alone — and he was harder to miss. Chetan Chaudhary, the man police say was Siya’s lover and co-conspirator, walked past the ticket counter with his headphones on and his hoodie pulled low, apparently ignoring staff. When a guard stopped him, he said he was there for exercise, promised to pay on his return, and jogged ahead.Chetan never paid and Ketan never came back down alive. The guard’s account adds a ground-level dimension to what CCTV footage had already suggested — that Chetan’s arrival at the fort was deliberate, coordinated, and carefully disguised. Police say he had reached the foothills before Siya and Ketan that morning, waited, and then followed them up. The hoodie, worn despite 33-degree heat with the front pulled low enough to obscure his face, had already flagged him to investigators reviewing the ticket counter footage. In one clip, Siya is seen glancing back; in the same frame, Chetan abruptly sits down — a movement police say indicated the two were in contact and tracking each other. At a secluded cliff edge higher up the fort, both Siya and Chetan allegedly pushed Ketan into the 400-foot gorge. Siya then raised an alarm, told the family he had slipped while posing for a photograph, and the following day — her birthday — posted an emotional tribute to him on social media. Ketan’s family didn’t accept the accidental fall theory. An experienced trekker, they said, wouldn’t simply slip. A murder case was registered after the family filed a formal complaint. Both Siya Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary are in police custody till June 29. Investigation is ongoing.
