LUCKNOW: The Meerut local court on Wednesday held murder accused Muskan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla guilty of killing Muskan’s husband, former Merchant Navy officer Saurabh Rajput. The quantum of punishment is expected to be pronounced after 15 days.
The case, in which Rajput’s body was allegedly found concealed inside a blue drum at his house, saw 126 hearings and testimony from more than 22 witnesses over a span of 576 days of hearings.
The court of District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra held that the two had killed Saurabh Rajput together. They had chopped his body into pieces and packed them in a blue drum.
Both Muskan and Sahil were held guilty of conspiracy, murder, and attempting to destroy evidence by dismembering the body and sealing it inside a concrete-filled blue industrial drum.
The prosecution and defence presented their respective arguments before District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra.
It may be recalled that the murder took place on March 3, 2025. The trial began in the District Judge’s court in Meerut in July 2025. The police had filed a 1,000-page charge sheet. On September 19, 2026, the court reserved its verdict.
The judge commented that such crimes create fear in society at large.
On March 3, 2025, Muskan Rastogi sedated her husband, Saurabh Rajput, 29, at their Indra Nagar home in Meerut by lacing his food, as per the police case.
Her lover Sahil Shukla arrived shortly after, and the duo stabbed Rajput to death before dismembering his body in the bathroom, the prosecution claimed.
Seeking to suppress the odour of decomposition, they packed the dismembered body parts into a large blue plastic drum, filled it with a freshly mixed wet compound of sand, water and cement, and sealed it, the probe revealed.
The duo fled to Himachal Pradesh the next day, and Rastogi used Rajput’s mobile phone to send text messages to his family members, creating an illusion that he was alive and travelling for business.
On March 17, 2025, suspicious relatives visited the residence alongside local authorities. Police cut open the sealed blue drum and discovered Rajput’s remains, leading to the chase and arrest of Muskan Rastogi and Shukla two days later.
The prosecution presented a chain of circumstantial, technical and physical evidence throughout the trial.
Local shopkeepers testified to selling the specific blue plastic drum, cement bags, sand, cleavers and razors to Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla before the murder.
Call detail records and mobile signal tower locations placed Shukla at the residence during the time of the crime and traced the duo’s joint movement to hotel stays in Shimla and Manali in Himachal Pradesh. Post-mortem findings confirmed that the victim was stabbed to death.