The Meerut district court on Wednesday sentenced Muskan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla to death for the murder of her husband, former Merchant Navy officer Saurabh Rajput, in the “blue drum” case.
On September 30, the Meerut district court held both guilty, ending a trial that ran for 13 months and 126 hearings. The 29-year-old Rajput was drugged and stabbed to death by Muskan and Sahil at his Meerut home in March 2025, according to the prosecution. Muskan and Rajput married in 2016 against his family’s wishes and had a six-year-old daughter. Investigators said Muskan had allegedly been planning the murder since November 2023.
Because of the gruesome nature of the crime, the case had spread across the country.
The couple then fled to Himachal Pradesh, and Muskan later told her family about the killing, which led police to register a case. The court granted the death sentence to both of them. The sentence comes two weeks after the verdict on guilt. District Judge Arvind Mishra observed at the time that such an act had “no place in a civilised society. His body was then dismembered and hidden in a blue plastic drum filled with cement and sand. Police cut open the sealed drum and found Rajput’s remains, then arrested both accused. She and Sahil had known each other since school. Police alleged the plan was long in the making.
Because of this, before the sentence, legal experts had said she was unlikely to receive the death penalty. The accused’s circumstances changed during the trial. Muskan gave birth to a baby girl in custody. The court’s order ruled otherwise.
