Meerut: In a rare and significant judicial development, the Meerut District Court has sentenced four individuals to death in two separate and gruesome murder cases within a span of just 48 hours. Both cases involved women conspiring with their respective lovers to eliminate their husbands in a brutal and premeditated manner.
On October 16, the court awarded capital punishment to Ravita and her lover, Amardeep, for the murder of her husband, Amit Kashyap. According to the prosecution, the duo executed the murder in April 2025. They strangled Amit to death while he was asleep and initially attempted to pass it off as a fatal snakebite. The investigation revealed that Ravita and Amardeep had even purchased a venomous snake from a snake charmer for Rs 1,000 to make the staged incident look authentic. However, the post-mortem report confirmed that Amit died of asphyxiation and found no traces of snake venom in his system, leading police to uncover the conspiracy.
Just two days earlier, on October 14, the district court pronounced the death sentence for Muskan Rastogi and her partner Sahil Shukla in the sensational ‘Blue Drum’ murder case. The court found them guilty of the premeditated murder of Muskan’s husband, Saurabh Rajput, a former Merchant Navy officer. During the trial, the prosecution established that in March 2025, Muskan and Sahil sedated Saurabh before killing him. They subsequently dismembered his body, stuffed the parts into a blue plastic drum, and sealed it with cement to conceal the crime.
The prosecution presented strong circumstantial evidence and crucial witness testimonies in both cases. For the Amit Kashyap murder case, the mobile call records between Ravita and Amardeep, along with the testimony of the snake charmer, proved to be decisive. In the ‘Blue Drum’ case, the testimonies of 22 witnesses, including those connected to the purchase of the drum, secured the conviction.
Following the pronouncement of the sentences, legal experts noted that the execution of capital punishment is not immediate. As per the legal procedure in India, the death sentences handed down by the sessions court must now be confirmed by the Allahabad High Court. The convicts also retain the constitutional right to appeal their sentences in the High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court.