The 590‑day trial that began in late 2025 culminated in Meerut on 27 October 2026, with the court finding Muskaan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla guilty of murdering her husband, Merchant Navy officer Saurabh Rajput.
Rastogi and Rajput wed in 2016, a love marriage that strained his family and led him to abandon his navy job to stay with her. The couple moved into a rented house and had a daughter in 2019, yet jealousy and financial discord simmered as Rajput learned of Rastogi’s affair with Sahil Shukla.
On 24 February 2026, Rajput flew back to India from London to celebrate their daughter’s sixth birthday. That evening, Rastogi slipped sleeping pills into his food, then stabbed him three times and used a razor on his throat. Shukla later severed Rajput’s head from his torso with a knife, and the two dismembered the body into fifteen pieces before dumping it into a blue plastic drum that they filled with cement.
Police traced the duo to a hotel stay in Manali and recovered footage of them smiling with Rajput’s phone. When the drum appeared too heavy to lift, the lid opened and a foul stench escaped, arousing suspicion. Authorities hauled the sealed drum to the mortuary, where a drill finally extracted the skeletal remains after fourteen days.
Judge Mishra, citing the brutality and the attempt to hide the crime, imposed death sentences on both defendants, warning that such acts threaten societal safety. The verdict, now final pending a High Court appeal, marks the end of a month‑long ordeal that saw witnesses testify, evidence be sifted, and a family plead for justice.