How 'Messages From The Dead' Sealed Plan To Murder Meerut Man

Muskaan Rastogi, the prime accused in her husband Saurabh Rajput's murder, used three Snapchat accounts to convince her boyfriend Sahil Shukla to join the plot, investigations into the chilling case reveal. NDTV has accessed shocking messages sent by Muskaan using those accounts, including one in which she said Saurabh is "destined for death at Muskaan's hands".

According to sources, Muskaan Rastogi operated three Snapchat accounts in her name, her mother and her brother's name. Muskaan and Sahil were drug addicts and the latter, it is learnt, believed in the occult. Muskaan knew this and decided to use this for her plan to kill her husband. Police have found that Muskaan had convinced Sahil that his dead mother spoke to him through her.

Muskaan would chat with Sahil using the Snapchat account in her name. "The account was not in the name of Sahil's mother but the messages were sent by Muskaan 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 Sahil and, later, convincing him to kill her husband, Saurabh. The entire plotting was done by Muskaan, who hatched the murder plan in November," said Superintendent of Police (Meerut City) Ayush Vikram Singh had earlier said.

According to sources, police have accessed the chats between Sahil and Muskaan in the days leading to Saurabh's murder. In one of the messages, Muskaan poses as Sahil's mother and tells him, "Shakti (power) will protect you". Another message asks Sahil to take care of "gudiya" -- an apparent reference to Muskaan. Another message refers to Muskaan as "bahu (daughter-in-law)" and tells Sahil she is now a "part of the family". "Your bahu has passed. She is now a part of the family. I am very happy. Now no one can defeat our bahu. He (Saurabh) is destined to die at Muskaan's hands," the message reads. According to investigators, these messages convinced the superstitious Sahil that Saurabh's murder was inevitable and that his dead mother supported this decision.

Muskaan did not stop at this. She used two more Snapchat accounts -- one in her mother's name and another in her brother's name -- to chat with Sahil and convince him that her family was fond of him and approved of their relationship. This erased any doubt he might have had in joining her plan to murder her husband Saurabh.

Muskaan and Saurabh married in 2016, they have a six-year-old daughter

Saurabh Rajput, who worked in London and was visiting Meerut for her daughter's birthday, was drugged by his wife Muskaan on the night of March 3. He was then stabbed to death, his body chopped up into 15 pieces and the body parts sealed into a cement-filled drum.

The investigation found that Sahil and Muskaan were having an affair and feared that Saurabh would put an end to their drug sessions. The two were heavily intoxicated and this fear drove them to commit the heinous crime, the probe has revealed.

How Did Sahil, Muskaan Meet

Sahil and Muskaan were schoolmates, but had fallen out of touch. In 2019, they reconnected at a reunion event. Shortly after, they started doing drugs together. At the time, Muskaan had been married to Saurabh for three years and had a daughter. Soon after the affair began, Saurabh came to know about it and also considered a divorce. He later decided against it, thinking about his daughter's future. In 2023, Saurabh took up a job in London and Muskaan stayed in Meerut. Saurabh's absence led to more frequent meetings with Sahil, building an intimacy that would lead them to plot a gruesome crime.

Muskaan and Sahil left for Himachal after the murder and planned to dispose of the body once they were back. The cement-filled drum with the 15 pieces of Saurabh's body was at her rented house. Once back, she called some labourers day and asked them to lift the drum and dump it somewhere. But the drum was so heavy that the labourers could not lift it. During their attempts, the drum's lid came off and the stench of Saurabh's rotting body parts filled the air. Unable to lift the drum and suspicious over the stench, the labourers left. Muskaan, the probe found, panicked and reached her parents' home. She told them that she and Sahil killed Saurabh and her parents took her to the police station.