Lust leads to sensational triple murder in Uttar Pradesh

District Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh:

Muskaan (20) walked in when Kirti was nursing her newborn baby. Kirti had been married to Muskaan's cousin Raghu for 3 years and was now the mother of his second child. 

Muskaan exuded confidence in her allure, well aware of her captivating charm—a playful provocateur. She had a penchant for communicating in double entendres, maintaining an air of innocence while subtly teasing. Despite being more akin to friends than relatives, Muskaan and Kirti's relationship often found its way into blush-worthy discussions initiated by Muskaan about the intricacies of intimacy and its purported delights. 

‘So in a span of three years, you have given birth to two children! Hmmm! Bhaiya must be really good in bed!’ Muskaan teased Kirti. Kirti blushed and mock scolded her, ‘Muskaan how can you ask such questions? These are intimate questions and I am older than you!’ 

Muskaan played with a lock of her hair twirled it around her fingers and looked at Kirti, ‘You are older to me only by 4 years. And I ask you these questions because I have no clue about what goes on in the bedroom as I have no experience!’ 

Kirti put her infant aside as he had fallen asleep. As Kirti buttoned up her blouse, Muskaan stared shamelessly at Kirti who now quickly pulled her saree to cover herself!

‘Look at this girl who has no shame! You are looking at my body worse than the gaze of a lecherous man! I will tell your Bhaiya that you keep asking questions about sex! You wait! Kirti mock-threatened her. Muskaan immediately piped up, ‘No No please don’t tell Raghu bhaiya! I was just asking because I am curious!’

Muskaan was sexy and she knew it - a tease. Muskaan – provocative as she might be – was still a virgin. She knew where to draw the line. She was after all the daughter of a Constable – and she had two brothers (Manoj & Anuj) who would take the skin off her back if she ever strayed out of line. Theirs was a conservative family. 

Muskaan slid closer to Kirti on the bed and whispered, ‘Does Raghu bhaiya kiss you here?’ Saying this Muskaan touched Kirti on her lips with her finger. Kirti felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her but came to her senses.

‘Now you wait!! I have to tell Raghu!’

Muskaan laughed and ran away.  She stood on the terrace and breathed in the fresh air. She felt stifled in the house. She longed to be free! Her hormones were raging and her inquisitive mind wanted to know more. Muskaan hated her brothers as they always watched over her. Every move of hers was dictated by them. They even put her in an all-girls school so that she would have nothing to do with boys and therefore negated all the chances of her ever being in close proximity to the opposite sex. They told her what to wear, to cover herself up, and to behave in a particular way like a girl should and not prance around like a tomboy. Muskaan hated her life. 

What made it worse was that she was fully aware of the effect that she had on the opposite sex. As she headed to school, the local boys would whistle at her and it made her feel good. She would lower her dupatta to expose the cleft between her breasts and tease the boys. She would tease them knowing fully well – that they would be dreaming about her. She was the unattainable dream girl for them.  Muskaan would often stare at herself in the mirror when she went for a shower – admiring herself and pining for love.

When Kirti told Raghu about the kind of questions that Muskaan asked her, instead of getting angry at Muskaan, Raghu felt a knot in his stomach. Suddenly, she no longer was his younger cousin's sister who tied rakhi every year.  It was a revelation. Suddenly his 20-year-old cousin seemed to come alive as a woman in front of his very eyes. Raghu lost his head.

‘Why don’t you stay behind tonight in the house? Both Manoj & Anuj and their father have gone to the city for work, and they won’t be back for the night. It will be good to have a male member of the family just for safety,’ Shanti Devi the matriarch of the family told Raghu, who had pretended to visit Shanti Devi. But in reality, he wanted a peek at Muskaan. Raghu called up Kirti and explained that Shanti Devi had asked him to stay back. The naïve Kirti allowed Raghu to stay back. She had no clue that this night was going to change their lives. 

At the dinner table, Muskaan could feel the gaze of Raghu. Her cheeks burned. Shanti Devi had had her dinner and gone to bed. 

‘I believe you have been asking questions to Kirti about me?’ Raghu could not hold himself back any longer. He decided to approach the topic head-on. Hearing this, Muskaan blushed and put her face in her hands, ‘Why did she tell you? I was just joking!’ Muskaan ran off. At night, Raghu crept into Muskaan’s room. He lifted the mosquito net and slid onto the bed and lay down beside her. She was awake. Her heart was pounding. She lay still, pretending to be asleep. 

He called her name softly and turned her towards him. He knew that she was awake! 

Muskaan stared at him in the darkness. She could see his glistening eyes and smell his after-shave lotion. 

‘What are you doing… you are my brother!’ Muskaan feebly protested. 
Raghu inquired – ‘you knew I was here all along, why didn’t you scream?’ Muskaan did not answer. Raghu placed his lips on hers and the young, impressionable and inquisitive Muskaan did not stop her cousin's brother. For her – it was the opening of a new world for her. For Raghu – it was the distraction he needed from his traditional wife, and for Muskaan it was love.

This was just the beginning. Muskaan and Raghu continued their illicit relationship. They met in the abandoned places and kept speaking to each other for hours on the mobile phone. And soon the rumours started to fly. When the two brothers were teased by their friends, the brothers Manoj & Anuj confronted Muskaan. She denied. 

Manoj took off his belt and started whipping Muskaan with it. She begged for mercy, denying that she had nothing to do with Raghu!
‘Then why is everyone talking about the two of you? Why is Sharmaji saying he spotted the two of you going to the movie theatre?’ He whipped her more and more. There were huge welts on her back, which were bleeding. 

Her brothers thrashed her and told her to stay in line. 
Meanwhile, Kirti confronted her husband, who denied it completely. When asked why Muskaan keeps calling him up on his mobile, he lied saying she wants to find out how you are doing and about the welfare of the new-born. 

A few days later after the thrashing incident, Manoj had gone out of the house, and his wife Nirmala was having her bath. When Nirmala stepped out of the bathroom, she noticed that her two-year-old son Pappu was not moving. She went to pick him up. His body was cold and there were red marks around his neck. Pappu was dead. The house was stunned. Manoj immediately blamed Muskaan citing it as revenge and a way of getting back at him for trying to stop her relationship with Raghu. Their mother Shanti Devi stood up for Muskaan – defending her as not being a murderer. The child could have died because of some throat illness. Muskaan broke down and said, ‘How can you accuse me of doing something so heinous? You are my brother and this is what you think of me?’ Manoj realized how cruel he had been in blaming his own sister Muskaan and he wept as they hugged. 

After Pappu’s death, Manoj withdrew into a shell. A father had lost his only son. And he could not cope with the grief. Muskaan stood on the terrace, inhaled a lungful of the air and smiled. She enjoyed seeing Manoj suffer. After all, he had made his life miserable. And she could never forgive him for the thrashing that he had given her. And more importantly, he had tried to keep her away from her love! She had enjoyed killing the baby. She wanted to practise on a soft, harmless target. A target that would not retaliate. She had enjoyed throttling the baby and watching it gasp for air, till it became still.  

Seeing Manoj distracted and occupied with his grief, Muskaan once again started meeting Raghu. But Muskaan realized that her second brother Anuj was the stricter one. He kept an eye on her – and this stifled existence was becoming unbearable for Muskaan.

One sunny afternoon, after toiling in the fields, Anuj returned home. Muskaan was waiting for her brother with a beaming smile. She decided to treat her brother, Anuj, to a hearty lunch. As Anuj took a spoonful of the curd, his expression changed abruptly, and he exclaimed that the curd tasted strange—perhaps it had curdled.

Shanti Devi, their mother, overheard the commotion and inquired about the issue. Anuj, with a furrowed brow, insisted that his mother taste the curd. Just as Shanti Devi was about to take the bowl, Muskaan, in a playful attempt to please her brother, hurriedly grabbed the bowl away from her mother's hand. This impulsive act earned Muskaan a scolding, but she responded with a mischievous smile, assuring her brother that she would fetch fresh curd.

Rushing into the kitchen, Muskaan quickly prepared a new bowl of curd, adding a hint of sugar for good measure. She returned to the dining area with the fresh bowl, offering it to Anuj. As he tasted the improved curd, he couldn't help but notice the change in his sister. Pleased, he remarked, ‘You've become quite responsible; maybe we should start looking for a groom for you.’ Muskaan, blushing, playfully pleaded with her brother not to tease her.

During lunch, Anuj suddenly started vomiting and writhing in pain. And before anyone could get help, Anuj died. Manoj now had no doubt that Muskaan was behind this. And to think she had poisoned her own brother. Manoj wanted to call the police. Shanti Devi, their mother stood like a rock. 

‘You will not do anything to Muskaan. I have informed your father. He is the man of the house. He will be the one to take the final call as to whether to report the death to the police or not!’

Muskaan denied having anything to do with her brother’s death.
As Sikander Singh, the father, returned home, a sense of shock engulfed him as he witnessed Manoj pointing an accusatory finger at Muskaan. 

Troubled, he speculated aloud, ‘It could've been a snake lurking in the fields or a venomous insect that might have bitten Anuj.’

Sikander held the esteemed position of a Constable at the District HQ, and his authoritative stature rendered reporting such incidents to the police unnecessary. Both his family and the villagers deferred to Sikander's judgment as final. The incident, with Anuj's sudden demise, faded into oblivion, sealed along with the solemnity of his final rites.

Unbeknownst to everyone, a small, lifeless rat lay unnoticed. The rodent had, in its curiosity or misfortune, tasted the contents of the upturned bowl of curd that slipped from Anuj's hands during his tragic final moments. The truth of the matter lay concealed, overshadowed by the prevailing assumption of a natural cause for Anuj's untimely end.

In the quiet village of whispers, Muskaan breathed new life into her connection with Raghu. Whispers swirled like the autumn wind, and soon the grapevine in the village bore fruit. Sikander, unable to endure the buzzing rumours, decided he needed to witness the truth firsthand. Under the guise of a regular workday, he clandestinely followed Muskaan as she tiptoed out of her home, tracing her steps to an abandoned hut where Raghu awaited. Before Sikander could intervene, the clandestine meeting unfolded into a dance of forbidden love.

Without a second thought, Sikander burst into action, unleashing his fury upon Raghu, thrashing both of them. Muskaan, torn from her lover's embrace, suffered her father's wrath until he deemed it enough. Her sentence: confinement within the walls of her room. Love, for Muskaan, was being strangled by the very hands that should have embraced it.
In the shadows of her captivity, Muskaan reached for a lifeline—Raghu's mobile phone. Her tearful voice conveyed the insurmountable obstacles posed by her family's male figures. Raghu, swayed by the intoxication of Muskaan's words, abandoned his wife and children, designating Sikander as the final barrier to their union.

On the ill-fated day of September 14, 2011, Sikander set out on his scooter for what seemed like any other ordinary workday. Fate, however, had other plans. Shots echoed through the deserted fields, and Sikander crumpled to the ground, his life extinguished. Manoj, Muskaan's brother, wasted no time; he filed a police report against Raghu, unravelling the twisted tale.

As the investigation unfolded, Muskaan initially denied any involvement, but the weight of guilt soon broke her resolve. Her sinister plot emerged—a web of manipulation, insults, and a calculated plan to eliminate the obstacles in their path. 

A once-innocent 20-year-old girl had turned into a perpetrator of a triple homicide, her love story twisted into a dark saga of deceit and murder.

A repressed upbringing, a stifling life at home, a male-dominant household where she was just another woman to do chores – she longed to be free… she longed for love… but it was her desire that took her down the road to hell.

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Anirban Bhattacharyya is a true crime bestselling author. He is the Creator-Producer of the hit TV show Savdhaan India and is the Producer of Crime Patrol. He is the author of India’s Money Heist: The Chelembra Bank Robbery, The Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers and The Hills Are Burning.