590 Days After Blue Drum Was Sealed, Meerut Murder Ends In Death Sentences

Five hundred and ninety days later, a courtroom in Meerut gave its verdict in the blue drum murder case.

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 two had been convicted two weeks earlier. The case had run through 126 hearings and 22 witness statements, and at its centre was a blue plastic drum filled with concrete.

The judge said such crimes create fear in society at large.

Love Marriage And A Sudden Exit

The story, as police and the investigation tell it, begins in 2016, when Saurabh Rajput and Muskaan Rastogi married. 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. Their daughter was born in 2019.

The joy did not last. Saurabh learnt that Muskaan was having an affair with his friend Sahil Shukla. The couple's tension grew, and divorce was considered. In the end, Saurabh stepped back, thinking of his daughter's future. He rejoined the Merchant Navy, and in 2023 he left the country for work.

Birthday Visit, Then A Tragedy

Saurabh was working in London when his daughter's sixth birthday approached on February 28. He flew home on February 24 to be there. 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.

About eight days before the crime, according to the probe, Muskaan bought two knives for Rs 800 and rehearsed how to stab someone several times. Unsure of her skill with the knives, she bought a cut-throat razor too.

The investigation says Muskaan put sleeping pills in Saurabh's food. 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 two then cut the body into 15 pieces. The pieces went into the blue drum, which was sealed with wet cement.

The original plan, according to the accused's statements, was to cover the remains with mud and plant a sapling in the drum. They worried about the smell and chose cement. The plan, as they described it, was to dispose of the body in time.

When people asked about Saurabh, Muskaan said he had gone to a hill station.

To back this up, she and Sahil travelled to Manali with his phone and posted photographs through his social media accounts. Police later recovered videos from the trip. In them, the two look happy and relaxed, days after the murder, with the body left at home.

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.

Read | Head Severed, Wrist Cut Off, Legs Bent To Fit Body In Drum: Meerut Murder Autopsy

The Drum Nobody Could Lift

The two returned from their trip on March 17. The next day, they called labourers to lift the drum and dump it somewhere.

The drum was too heavy. During the attempt, the lid came off, and the stench spread. The labourers, unable to lift it, left with suspicions.

Muskaan panicked, the probe found, and went to her parents' home. She first tried to blame Saurabh's sister and brother-in-law. Her parents pressed her, and she admitted that she and Sahil had killed Saurabh. They took her to the police station.

After the family's complaint, police took Muskaan and Sahil into custody. Under questioning, the two broke down, confessed and told police where the body was.

Meerut City police chief Ayush Vikram Singh described the moment. "On suspicion, we took his wife Muskaan and her lover Sahil into custody. During questioning, they said that on March 4, they killed Saurabh with a knife. They chopped up the body, put it in a drum and sealed it with cement. Police have recovered the body and sent it for autopsy. We have taken the two in custody, and they will be presented in court," he said.

Police found the drum, but a hammer and chisel could not break the cement. The drum was moved to the mortuary, where a drill finally recovered what was left of Saurabh, 14 days after the murder.

Saurabh's mother, Renu Devi, has said the couple's six-year-old daughter kept telling neighbours, "Papa drum mein hai" (Papa is in the drum).

Asked if the girl knew about her father's death, she said, "She might have seen something. Some people said she was saying, 'Papa is in the drum'. She must have seen something. That's why they removed her from there."

The prosecution built its case on circumstantial, technical and physical evidence. Local shopkeepers testified that they had sold the blue drum, cement bags, sand, cleavers and razors to Rastogi and Shukla before the murder. Call detail records and mobile tower locations placed Shukla at the house at the time of the crime. Post-mortem findings confirmed that Saurabh had been stabbed to death.