A local district and sessions court in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut on Wednesday sentenced Muskaan Rastogi and her lover, Sahil Shukla, to death on charges of brutally killing the former’s husband and merchant navy officer Saurabh Rajput in March 2025. The court’s ruling came almost two weeks after the duo had been convicted in the case, which sent shockwaves across the nation.
Post-murder, the duo had concealed Rajput’s dismembered body inside a blue plastic drum filled with concrete, emerging as one of the most disturbing criminal cases reported from the region.
Sahil and Muskaan arrested by police
Death sentence comes after 126 hearings
District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra pronounced the verdict after as many as 126 hearings and statements from 22 witnesses. The court discovered that Muskaan and Sahil had hatched a plan to murder Rajput and later tried to conceal the crime by placing his severed remains inside an industrial blue drum filled with a mixture of sand, cement and water. During the proceedings, the judge remarks that crimes of such severe nature instill fear in the society.
Notably, the blue drum emerged as a crucial piece of evidence, ultimately paving the way for the investigating police personnel to piece together the sequence of events leading up to Rajput’s murder.
How had the murder been executed?
Sahil and Muskaan in police custody
As per the prosecution, the crime unfolded on March 3, 2025, at the couple’s house in Meerut’s Indira Nagar. Muskaan allegedly sedated her husband Saurabh by lacing his food with a substance, following which Shukla arrived there.
The duo then stabbed Saurabh to death, prosecutors said, and then dismembered his body inside the bathroom.
The investigating police personnel learnt that the accused allegedly placed the severed body parts inside a large blue plastic drum and filled it with a freshly prepared mixture of cement, sand and water. The duo sealed the drum thereafter in an apparent bid to contain the smell of the body’s decomposition and concealing the cold-blooded murder.
Duo escapes to Himachal, body discovered later
The accused duo then fled to Himachal Pradesh a day after the crime. During their absence, Muskaan reportedly used Saurabh’s cell phone to send messages to his kin, creating the impression that he was alive and was travelling for work.
However, when Saurabh’s relatives grew suspicious, they visited the couple’s house with local authorities on March 17, 2025. Police opened the sealed drum and discovered Rajput’s remains, prompting a manhunt for Muskaan.
Both Muskaan and Sahil were arrested two days later.
Evidence that sealed the case
During the course of the 1.5-year-long trial, prosecutors presented circumstantial, technical and physical evidence to establish the involvement of the duo in the crime.
Local shopkeepers testified that they had sold the blue drum, cement bags, sand, cleavers and razors to the accused before the murder unfolded. When the call details records and cell phone tower locations were sifted through, they placed Shukla at the couple’s house around the time of the crime and helped trace the pair’s movements to hotels in Shimla and Manali.
The findings emerging from Saurabh’s autopsy confirmed that he had died of stab injuries.