Muskaan Rastogi and her friend Sahil Shukla regularly purchased alcohol, ordered a birthday cake and even visited a gurudwara during their 15-day trip to the hills from March 4, hours after they murdered a former Merchant Navy officer and dismembered his body in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut.
According to the cab driver who was hired to take the accused from Meerut to Shimla, Manali and Kasol in Himachal Pradesh, Muskaan and Sahil barely spoke to one another as they left for the trip.
"I did not know about the murder. The cab, a Swift Dzire, was booked on the morning of March 4. I reached the given address in the evening to pick up the two people for the 15-day tour. They ate food but barely spoke on the way. The woman would always get down from the car each time her mother called," the driver, Ajab Singh, told NDTV.
Mr Singh said that during their stay in Shimla, Muskaan had sent him an audio message, requesting him to buy a birthday cake. "She told me that it was his (Sahil's) birthday and asked me to get a cake from somewhere. She told me to keep the packet in her room and asked me to say that it belongs to me and that I would take it the next morning. She also told me not to call but text her in case I managed to buy the cake," he said.
The driver said the two accused also visited a gurudwara in Shimla and showed a receipt of the parking fee. He said the vehicle was also refuelled on March 7.
Mr Singh said Sahil used to drink at least two bottles of alcohol everyday. "They used to regularly buy alcohol. I did not know the woman also used to drink till I saw her buy and consume alcohol when we were returning to Meerut," he said.
The driver was paid a total of Rs 54,000 for the entire trip.
On March 4, Muskaan and Sahil, who were having an affair, stabbed her husband, Saurabh Rajput, to death and dismembered his body, before sealing the parts inside a drum with cement in Meerut. The duo then set off on a vacation to Himachal Pradesh, all the while misleading the victim's family by sending them messages from his phone, police said.
The matter came to light on March 18, when Muskan confessed to her mother, who reported her to the police. Muskan and Sahil were subsequently arrested.
Doctors who conducted the post-mortem reported that Saurabh Rajput was stabbed in the heart with extreme force thrice, indicating a sustained and violent attack. "The blows from the sharp long knife pierced deep inside the heart," one of the doctors said.
The post mortem revealed that the Saurabh's head was severed from the body, both hands were cut off from the wrist and his legs were bent backwards, suggesting an attempt to fit the body in a drum. The cause of death has been attributed to shock and excessive bleeding.
Saurabh and Muskan got married in 2016 against his family's wishes, following a relationship and they had a six-year-old daughter. Muskan and Sahil had known each other since school and reconnected via a WhatsApp group in 2019, police said.
Asked whether Saurabh's daughter knew about her father's death, his mother Renu Devi said the girl had been telling neighbours, "Papa is in the drum". "She must have seen something."
(With inputs from Shyam Parmar)
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