Five hundred and ninety days later, a courtroom in Meerut gave its verdict in the blue drum murder case.
It was a love marriage. Saurabh wanted to spend more time with his wife and quit his Merchant Navy job. His family did not take well to the marriage or to his abrupt decision. Friction followed, and he moved out with Muskaan to a rented house. By then, police say, Muskaan and Sahil had come closer and decided to kill him. The investigation found that the two were using drugs and feared Saurabh would stop it. He also knew about the affair. The pair’s movements together were later traced to hotel stays in Shimla and Manali. Saurabh’s family called him for days and got no answer. They filed a police complaint. After the family’s complaint, police took Muskaan and Sahil into custody.
The story, as police and the investigation tell it, begins in 2016, when Saurabh Rajput and Muskaan Rastogi married. Their daughter was born in 2019. Saurabh was working in London when his daughter’s sixth birthday approached on February 28. He flew home on February 24 to be there.
Under questioning, the two broke down, confessed and told police where the body was.
District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra sentenced Muskaan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla to death for the murder of her husband, Merchant Navy officer Saurabh Rajput.
On Wednesday, District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra sentenced Muskaan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla to death for the murder of her husband, Merchant Navy officer Saurabh Rajput. The case had run through 126 hearings and 22 witness statements, and at its centre was a blue plastic drum filled with concrete.
The two had been convicted two weeks earlier.
Once he fell asleep, she stabbed him three times with a knife and then used the razor on his throat. Sahil, the probe found, severed the head from the torso with a knife.
The investigation says Muskaan put sleeping pills in Saurabh’s food.
