Merchant navy officer murdered, body chopped, sealed in drum by wife, lover
Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla allegedly mixed sedatives in Saurabh Rajput’s food before killing him when he returned from London
A 32-year-old man’s wife allegedly murdered him in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, dismembered the body, sealed it inside a drum, and covered it with cement with the help of a person she was in a relationship with, investigators said on Wednesday.
Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla allegedly mixed sedatives in Saurabh Rajput’s food before killing him when he returned from London where he worked in the merchant navy. The alleged killers then went on a trip to Shimla.
Police superintendent Ayush Vikram Singh said Rastogi confessed to killing Rajput when she returned home and was unable to explain her husband’s absence to her mother whom she initially tried to mislead with vague answers. Rastogi’s family immediately took her to a police station on Tuesday afternoon to report the matter.
Rastogi told police that Rajput’s body was inside the drum but they did not believe her. Two officers were sent to the scene, where they found the drum but not the body. They reported Rastogi was lying as the drum was filled with dried cement. Police interrogated Shukla and he too confessed that the body parts were in the drum which was then opened leading to the recovery of Rajput’s severed head, hands, and feet.
Police discreetly took the drum in an e-rickshaw to a hospital where Rajput’s body parts were extracted for post-mortem. It took over an hour for workers and police to break the drum using hammers and drilling machines.
Police said Rajput, who got to know about his wife’s relationship with Shukla, had returned to Meerut from London on February 24 to celebrate the birthdays of his wife and daughter on February 25 and on February 28.
Investigators said Rastogi got into a relationship with her neighbour Shukla when Rajput got a job in London in 2020 and left his wife and daughter in Meerut. They said Muskan and Sahil murdered Saurabh on March 4 and cut the body into 15 pieces while her daughter was sleeping in the next room. The next day, Muskan left her five-year-old daughter at her parents’ home and went to Shimla with Shukla.
Senior police superintendent Vipin Tada said the accused have been arrested and were being interrogated.
