Meerut murder: Cops plan fast-track court trial against accused

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday said they plan to take the Saurabh Rajput murder case to a fasttrack court even as a postmortem revealed the extreme brutality with which he was killed and his body dismembered allegedly by his wife and her loverAccording to news agency PTI the autopsy disclosed that Rajputs head was severed from his body both hands were cut off at the wrists and his legs were bent backwards suggesting an attempt to fit the body into a drum The cause of death has been attributed to shock and excessive bleedingFollowing the murder Muskan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla travelled to Kasol in Himachal Pradesh on March 10 and checked into a hotel introducing themselves as husband and wife They left on March 16 the hotel operator said adding that their driver accompanied themThey stayed in their hotel room the whole day only going out once in their car which was unusual They had minimal interaction with staff and did not allow anyone to clean their room he said During checkout they claimed to have come from Manali and said they would return to Uttar Pradesh PTI reportedSenior Superintendent of Police Vipin Tada told PTI that police would prioritise filing a charge sheet as quickly as possibleWe will try to run the case in a fasttrack court so that the accused get punished as soon as possible he said adding that police would seek custody of Rastogi and Shukla once their 14day judicial custody endsThe gruesome details of the murder have attracted nationwide attentionDoctors who conducted the postmortem reported that Rajput was stabbed in the heart with extreme force three times indicating a sustained and violent attackThe blows from the sharp long knife pierced deep inside the heart one of the doctors saidSuperintendent of Police City Ayush Vikram Singh confirmed the postmortem findings Muskan brutally stabbed Saurabh in his heart puncturing it His neck was severed and both palms were cut off The body was cut into four pieces to fit inside the drum the officer saidMeerut murder Saurabh Rajput was drugged stabbed to death on March 4The medical team further detailed the gruesome attempt to conceal the bodyIt was placed in the drum which was then filled with dust and cement The body solidified in the cement and did not decompose due to the lack of air The smell was not extremely foul a member of the postmortem team disclosedThe drum had to be cut open and the hardened cement painstakingly removed to retrieve the bodyRajput was allegedly drugged and then stabbed to death by his wife and her lover on 4 March His body was dismembered and sealed inside a drum with cement The duo then went on holiday to Himachal Pradesh misleading Rajputs family by sending messages from his phoneThe matter was reported to police on 18 March following which Muskan and Sahil were arrestedDeputy Inspector General of Police Meerut Zone Kalanidhi Naithani has directed the force to conduct a thorough investigation file a charge sheet promptly and ensure strong prosecution to secure severe punishmentMeerut murder Statements of vendors who sold knife drum and cement being recordedAs part of the investigationmdashnow overseen by an inspector and monitored by an assistant superintendent of policemdashstatements of vendors who sold the knife drum and cement were being recorded Police are also investigating the accusedrsquos activities after the murderA video circulating on social media purportedly shows Rastogi and Shukla dancing at a partyIn the video both are seen dancing to DJ music at a party while drenched in the colours of Holi a police source saidThe source added that Rastogis online chats and audio messages exchanged with the driver of the cab in which she and Shukla travelled to Himachal Pradesh had also surfaced onlineOne such video showed Rastogi sending an audio message to the cab driver via WhatsApp asking him to bring a cake the police source saidRastogi and Rajput got married in 2016 against his familys wishes after a relationship and had a sixyearold daughter Rastogi and Shukla had known each other since school and reconnected via a WhatsApp group in 2019 police saidWith PTI inputs