Meerut, March 21 — A 29-year-old merchant navy officer, Saurabh Rajput, was brutally murdered and dismembered by his wife, Muskaan Rastogi, and her lover, Sahil Shukla, both 27, in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
The duo confessed to the gruesome crime, driven by their obsession and desire to remove Rajput as an obstacle in their relationship.
According to the police, the couple meticulously planned the murder. On March 3, Muskaan laced lauki ke kofte with sedatives, which Rajput brought home from his mother. After he fell unconscious, she called Sahil to their rented home in Indira Nagar. The pair then launched a frenzied knife attack, stabbing Rajput multiple times until he succumbed, Superintendent of Police (City) Ayush Vikram Singh confirmed.
After the murder, Sahil dragged the body to the bathroom, severed the head with a razor, and hacked off the hands at the wrists. The couple initially planned to dismember the body further, pack it into polythene bags, and scatter the parts in isolated locations. They placed the torso in a bag and hid it inside the box of their double bed, where Muskaan slept that night, inches above her husband’s remains. Meanwhile, Sahil took the head and hands to his home, keeping them for 24 hours.
On March 5, they abandoned their initial disposal plan. The duo purchased a large blue drum from Ghantaghar and cement from a local market. Back at Muskaan’s house, they placed the torso inside the drum. Sahil later retrieved the head and hands, adding them to the drum. They then poured a mixture of cement and dust, creating a concrete tomb around the dismembered body—a method police suspect was inspired by crime films.
Police revealed that the couple’s relationship rekindled in 2019 through a school WhatsApp group and intensified due to Rajput’s frequent absences while working in London. “According to her family, Sahil was involved in drug use and shared contraband with Muskaan. We are investigating if drugs influenced their actions,” SP Singh said, as quoted by PTI.
The couple, presented before the chief judicial magistrate on Wednesday, was remanded to 14-day judicial custody. Outside the court, they were assaulted by a group of lawyers, with Sahil’s clothes torn in the altercation before police intervened.
Jail officials confirmed that Muskaan spent a restless night in Chaudhary Charan Singh district jail, showing signs of severe distress.
