MEERUT: When Saurabh Rajput flew back to Meerut from London on Feb 24, he thought he was coming home to surprise his wife on her birthday the next day. Instead, he walked into a deadly trap. By the time anyone realised he was missing, he had been killed, dismembered and beheaded, and left to rot in cement in a blue plastic drum. It was untouched for nearly two weeks. The murder, which took place on the night of March 4, remained undiscovered until Tuesday.

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Saurabh, 35, had been married to Muskan Rastogi, 27, since 2016. Their relationship, once defiant of family opposition, had fractured under the weight of betrayal. On the night of the murder, after he had unknowingly swallowed a spiked drink, Muskan called her lover, Sahil Shukla alias Mohit, also 27, to execute a plan they had been rehearsing. As Saurabh lay unconscious, she drove a knife into his chest several times. Then Sahil stepped in, taking a sharper blade to his neck.
'Saurabh was madly in love with my daughter, left his family just to marry her'
Meerut SSP Vipin Tada described the next steps: "After killing Saurabh, they wanted to dispose of the remains but failed. So, they left his body in the bathroom overnight along with the severed head. The next morning, Sahil bought 50kg of cement and a 220ltr-drum. They chopped off his hands, packed the dismembered body inside, and sealed it with cement. To cover up their crime, Muskan used Saurabh's phone to send deceptive messages to his family from Shimla for several days."
With the crime hidden, the couple left for Shimla on March 5. They returned 12 days later to a house that still held the secret. When Muskan finally broke down and confessed to her mother Kavita Rastogi, the latter knew what was the right thing to do. She dragged her daughter to the police. "Saurabh was mad for my daughter. He left his family just to marry her. He was like my son," Kavita told the police.
Retrieving the body turned into a nightmare even for hardened police officers. They had to send the drum - still intact - to the autopsy house as they couldn't drill through the concrete. CMO Ashok Kataria told TOI, "We had to use a marble cutter to extract them. The body was so decomposed that we could not conduct a proper autopsy. The remains were not enough for a thorough examination and we could not ascertain the cause of death."
Saurabh had left his family to be with Muskan, but their marriage began to crack when he discovered her affair with Sahil, her childhood friend. Muskan allegedly manipulated Sahil, a BCom graduate preparing for CA exams, into believing that Saurabh's death was necessary for their future - and for his own peace.
SP (city) Ayush Vikram Singh described a plan that was set in motion months before Saurabh even returned home. "Muskan had been plotting the murder since Nov. She manipulated Sahil through fake Snapchat messages, making him believe they were prodding and hints from his dead mother. Days before Saurabh's return, she bought two knives, claiming they were to cut chicken, and feigned anxiety to obtain sedatives, which she later used to drug her husband before the attack."
"Sahil's mother had died years ago, and Muskan played on his grief. She made him believe his dead mother had reincarnated and was speaking to him, using this to control him and push him towards killing Saurabh," he said. "She also told him that Saurabh was not in the merchant navy but working in a bakery in London. We are verifying these details." He added that Muskan and Sahil have been charged with murder and destruction of proof.
Saurabh's brother, Bablu Rajput, said, "Muskan took some of my brother's money. He had brought Rs 1 crore from London, which. he distributed among close people. We're not on talking terms. He never stayed with us."
By the time the accused were taken to court on Wednesday, locals thrashed them in police custody. "We will take action against the perpetrators," SSP said. Kavita, though, sided with the mob rather than her daughter. "She deserves death penalty. She should be killed the way he was."