Merchant Navy officer murder: How wife plotted brutal killing for 4 months, tricked lover

The murder case of a Merchant Navy officer in Uttar Pradesh by his wife and lover continues to unravel.

The woman, Muskan Rastogi, had been allegedly plotting to kill her husband, Saurabh Rajput, since November.

She had also tricked her lover into thinking that his mother was communicating with him via Snapchat from beyond the grave.

Rastogi’s family believes that she may have killed Rajput in part because she allegedly used narcotics with Shukla.

Let’s take a closer look.

The planning

On March 4, Saurabh Rajput was allegedly murdered by his wife, Muskan Rastogi, and Sahil Shukla, with whom she was having an affair.

After that, Rajput’s body was cut up into 15 parts and put in a cement-sealed drum while the killers struggled to find a way to get rid of it without raising any red flags.

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Muskan Rastogi had been plotting her husband’s murder since November, according to authorities.

“The entire plotting was done by Rastogi, who hatched the murder plan in November,” Superintendent of Police (Meerut City) Ayush Vikram Singh told NDTV.

Days before her husband’s return, on February 22, she had bought two knives for Rs 800 and told the storekeeper that she would use them to cut chicken. She also had faked anxiety to a doctor and obtained the medications she would use to put him to sleep before killing him.

She started looking for locations to bury Rajput’s body after planning to kill him, according to Singh. She even enquired as to where a body may be buried after telling her friends that she needed to bury certain items she had used in a puja, or prayer rite. However, the friends did not assist her.

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Rajput returned on February 24 and Rastogi mixed the medications with his alcohol the following day, but he did not drink, according to the officer.

They kept look for the opportunity to drug Rajput for several days.

Ultimately, on March 4, Rastogi and Shukla drugged him, and then stabbed him to death.

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Drug sessions and more

According to Rastogi’s family members, she and Shukla were habitual drug users, and they may have killed Rajput because he would “stop their drug sessions.”

A Dainik Bhaskar report claims Shukla regularly smoked ‘ganja’ and had made Rastogi an addict, which was why the woman was not able to leave him.

As per another NDTV report, there are multiple drawings on the wall of Shukla’s rental house, where he lives with two other men, that suggest the residents are involved with drugs. In a video, the number six is positioned around a star polygon in a mural representing Satan.

On the floor adjacent to another mural that reads, “You can’t trip with us…” are several beer cans.

A graphic of what looks to be a joint being transferred from one hand to the other with the words “Puff puff pass” was also present in the apartment.

Due to his drug use, Shukla was also vulnerable to one of Rastogi’s evil plans in the run-up to the murder: she created an account on Snapchat and was able to trick Shukla into believing that her deceased mother was communicating with him via it.

“The account was not in the name of Shukla’s mother but the messages were sent by Rastogi in a way that she made him believe that his dead mother had reincarnated and was speaking to him. She used this as a means of controlling Shukla and, later, convincing him to kill her husband,” Singh said, according to NDTV.

Firstpost cannot independently verify this information.

Misleading the family

Rajput’s marriage to Rastogi in 2016 against their wishes and then moving out of the house to live with her in a leased flat caused a rift with his family.

Singh claimed that his family had all but disowned him because of this and his frequent drinking.

“He used to go to his parents’ house to eat, but they did not have much of a relationship. He used to stay away from the city for days and had been abroad for two years, but his family did not contact him much. Muskaan knew about this and she was banking on it to be able to tell the family after killing and burying him that he had gone abroad and would not return,” the police officer said.

After killing Rajput, Rastogi told everyone that he had gone to Manali to relax, and had communicated with his family through his phone.

According to an NDTV report that obtained the WhatsApp conversations between Rastogi and Rajput’s sister Chinki after the murder, Rastogi allegedly messaged her on March 6 to ask if she will be in Meerut for Holi. She replied, “Yes.” The reply from Rastogi stated that Rajput was out of town and would only return after the festival.

Two days later, Chinki enquired as to whether her brother had taken his daughter with him, believing that she was speaking to him. The response was that she would have been sick because it was -10 degrees Celsius where he had gone. Wishes for Holi were soon exchanged.

In an attempt to talk to Rajput, Chinki called him on WhatsApp on March 16. The phone was not answered. Four calls remained unanswered the following day. When the family became suspicious, they went to the police.

In order to support Rajput’s story, Rastogi and Shukla even travelled to Manali and uploaded pictures from his phone, it was revealed during interrogation.

She admitted to her parents that she had killed Rajput, and the two were arrested upon their return from Manali.

With inputs from agencies