Judge cites 'Mahabharata' while giving death penalty in blue drum murder case
A Meerut court has sentenced two individuals to death for the murder of a former Merchant Navy officer, whose body was found dismembered in a drum. The judge cited the Mahabharata to explain the moral and legal justification for the capital punishment.
Why it matters
The case reflects the intersection of traditional cultural/religious texts with modern judicial sentencing in India.
MEERUT: Punishing the guilty in accordance with the gravity of their crime is also Dharma, a Meerut court observed on Wednesday while sentencing Muskan Rastogi and her lover Sahil Shukla to death in the blue drum murder case, prosecution lawyer KK Chaubey said.District and sessions judge Arvind Kumar Mishra invoked the Mahabharata while pronouncing the sentence, drawing on the epic to explain the principle behind the punishment awarded to the two convicts, Chaubey said.The court sentenced Muskan and Sahil to death for murdering Muskan’s husband, Saurabh Rajput, a former Merchant Navy officer, and destroying evidence.It also imposed fines of Rs 50,000 each under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (murder) and Rs 20,000 each under Section 238(A) for causing the disappearance of evidence.
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