On the evening of April 7, Priyanka Purohit reportedly left the front door of her residence in Gondikhedha Charan village, located in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district, unsecured before going to bed. Two men allegedly entered the house, discovered her husband, Devkrishna—a 28-year-old chilli trader—sleeping, and fatally attacked him with a sharp weapon. After the assailants left, Priyanka reportedly remained in silence for about fifteen minutes before raising an alarm.
According to her statements to the police, Priyanka claimed that the intruders had bound her, stolen gold and silver items valued at approximately Rs 3 lakh, and killed her husband when he tried to resist. However, inconsistencies soon emerged: the stolen jewelry was found within the house, her phone records contradicted her claims, and the specifics of the incident varied with each retelling. Within 48 hours, she reportedly admitted to fabricating the story, according to police sources.
On Thursday, Priyanka Purohit, age 25, was taken into custody along with her associate, Kamlesh Purohit, who is 31. The arrest followed the unraveling of her narrative about an armed robbery.
The couple’s marriage had been arranged when they were both 15, a circumstance neither had chosen. They lived with their respective families until becoming adults, with Priyanka moving into Devkrishna’s home only in 2021. From the outset, there were reported tensions in their relationship, as Priyanka allegedly expressed her dissatisfaction in various ways.
Devkrishna’s sister, Jyoti, recounted that Priyanka would make disparaging remarks about his complexion, saying things like, “You’re dark; you don’t deserve me.” She was said to have a pattern of instigating arguments, disappearing to her parental home for extended periods, and then returning to instigate further conflict, even threatening to file false allegations against Devkrishna’s family.
At the same time, Jyoti had allegedly been involved with Kamlesh Purohit since 2017, who operated a roadside eatery in Rajgarh. Kamlesh was already married and had two children.
On March 31, after returning from her parents’ home, Priyanka and Kamlesh supposedly reached an agreement to pay Rs 1 lakh to have Devkrishna killed. They allegedly enlisted the services of an assassin, Surendra Bhati, from Chhadvad. Surendra had a criminal background, having served four years in prison for a shooting incident in Mumbai in 2020 and being wanted for a robbery in Kukshi in 2025. According to police, an initial payment of Rs 50,000 was made for the assassination.
Following Priyanka’s claims of robbery, investigative teams, including a fingerprint unit, dog squad, and cyber crime department, commenced their inquiries but reportedly found no evidence to substantiate her version of events. The stolen jewelry was located within the house, and mobile phone records indicated that Kamlesh had been in contact with Priyanka before, during, and after the incident.
“Initially, we approached the case from the perspective of a robbery, but suspicion ultimately shifted towards the wife,” stated SP Mayank Awasthi in an interview with The Indian Express. “Under rigorous questioning, she confessed to leaving the door ajar, that Kamlesh was waiting outside, and that she awaited a signal from him before raising an alarm. Their plan was to fabricate a robbery to mislead the investigation entirely.”
