Senior Correspondent
NewsBits.in
MEERUT: The Meerut District and Sessions Court on October 14 awarded the death sentence to Muskan Rastogi and her partner, Sahil Shukla, for the brutal March 2025 murder of Muskan’s husband Saurabh Rajput, a former merchant navy officer.
The sentencing came following the conviction of Rastogi and Shukla on September 30, 2026. The capital punishment was pronounced by District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra.
The heinous murder of Saurabh Rajput became infamous as the ‘blue drum murder’ after the convicts, according to police investigation, were found to have stashed the dismembered body of victim in a blue plastic drum and packed it with cement in a bid to dispose it. The convicts then left for Himachal Pradesh leaving the drum back at Saurabh and Muskan’s home.
The district court ordered both convicts to be hanged till death, classifying the murder as falling within the ambit of ‘rarest of rare’ category.
Even Muskan’s own parents had submitted a statement to the court saying they would not oppose the death penalty and maintaining that the victim Saurabh Rajput was a ‘very good person’ and that they would not oppose the capital punishment allocation. Both convicts appeared in the sentencing via video conferencing from prison and reportedly broke down as the sentence was read out.
