The Meerut court that sentenced Muskaan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla to death for the murder of Rastogi’s husband, merchant navy officer Saurabh Rajput, referred to the Bhagavad Gita while pronouncing the sentence on Wednesday, according to the lawyer representing the victim’s side.
“The judge cited references from the Mahabharata, affirming that the court would perform its duty, as ‘dharma also means punishing those who commit wrongs’. Despite significant efforts by the defence,” victim Saurabh Rajput’s lawyer said outside court.
The post-mortem confirmed that Rajput had been stabbed to death. “The judge cited references from the Mahabharata, affirming that the court would perform its duty, as ‘dharma also means punishing those who commit wrongs’. The detailed judgment was awaited. District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra pronounced the sentence two weeks after convicting the pair. Rastogi’s family never met her in prison. The investigation found that they packed the body parts into a large blue plastic drum, filled it with a wet mix of sand, water and cement to suppress the odour of decomposition, and sealed it. At trial, the prosecution relied on a chain of circumstantial, technical and physical evidence. Call detail records and mobile tower data placed Shukla at the house when the crime was committed. The same data traced the pair’s joint movements to hotel stays in Shimla and Manali.
The trial ran through 126 hearings, and 22 witnesses gave statements. Rastogi sedated Rajput by lacing his food at their Indra Nagar home on March 3, 2025, according to the police case.
Despite significant efforts by the defence,” Saurabh Rajput’s lawyer said outside court. Earlier on Wednesday, Rastogi’s parents told the court that Rajput was a “very good person”. They said that if the guilty were sentenced to death, “we will not protest”. The prosecution said Shukla arrived shortly afterwards, and the two stabbed Rajput to death and dismembered his body in the bathroom.
Local shopkeepers testified that they had sold the blue drum, cement bags, sand, cleavers and razors to the accused before the murder.
