The investigation revealed that Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla were childhood acquaintances, having studied together from class 1 to class 8.
Credit: X/@ShoneeKapoor
Muskan Rastogi, the female accused in the Meerut murder case was seen playing Holi with her lover Sahil Shukla 11 days after murdering her husband, in videos circulating on social media platforms.
Muskan, along with Shukla confessed to murdering and dismembering her husband, Saurabh Rajput, and encasing the body parts in a cement-filled drum.
According to the police, the duo confessed to having stabbed Saurabh to death on March 4. They were arrested on Tuesday and remanded in 14-day judicial custody on Wednesday.
A video clip has gone viral on social media showing the two accused celebrating Holi while smiling at the camera with their faces covered in colour.
Police said that Muskan and Sahil even went to Shimla after perpetrating the crime and spent a fortnight together making purchases as part of preparations for their marriage.
A former Merchant Navy office, Saurabh had married Muskan after a brief affair around nine years back and the couple had a six-year-old daughter.
Saurabh, who worked in a shipping company, had returned home on February 24 to be with his daughter on her birthday.
Muskan served Saurabh food laced with sedatives and after he slept, she, with the help of Shukla, hacked him to death with a knife. The duo then chopped his body into several pieces, dumped the parts in a drum and sealed it with wet cement and then left for Shimla.
Police said that a drill machine had to be used to recover the chopped body parts.
On Wednesday, the duo was presented in the court of the chief judicial magistrate and remanded to 14-day judicial custody.
Outside the court, they were attacked by a group of lawyers, who physically assaulted them. Shukla's clothes were torn during the altercation, and the police had to intervene to ensure their safety.
Investigation revealed that Muskan and Shukla were childhood acquaintances, having studied together from class 1 to class 8.
They reconnected through a WhatsApp group created by a mutual classmate, leading to a rekindled relationship in 2019, three years after Muskan and Saurabh's marriage.
The two met in person for the first time since school at a party organised by the WhatsApp group at a mall in Meerut, where their love affair started.
Police have claimed that the duo planned and killed Saurabh because they considered him to be an obstacle in their relationship.
The mother of the former Merchant Navy officer, Renu Devi, has made a startling claim in the murder case that his six-year-old daughter knew about her father's death and said, 'Papa is in the drum'.
"That is why, as we have come to know from some people, she (Saurabh's daughter) was saying, 'Papa is in the drum'," Renu said.
However, SP City Ayush Vikram Singh dismissed this claim, stating, "When Muskan was telling the story of the incident to the family members, the girl might have been present there. The girl did not know anything (beforehand) about this."
"The truth is that Muskan's mother knew about the crime (before March 18). They went to the police station only to save themselves from legal action," Renu alleged on Wednesday.
Singh confirmed that Muskan had been planning Saurabh's murder since November 2023.
(With DHNS, PTI inputs)