‘Maha Kumbh trip’ part of sinister murder plot: Weary of wife’s demand for separate home, Rajasthan man poisons her, stages accident after scouting ‘perfect site’

JAIPUR: The promise of a spiritual journey to Maha Kumbh turned fatal for 34-year-old Parul Saini, whose only fault was dreaming of a home to call her own. What began as a seemingly devout husband taking his wife on a religious pilgrimage ended in a carefully orchestrated murder that nearly fooled everyone.Cracking the murder, Dausa police arrested the husband from Barkat Nagar near Tonk Phatak in Jaipur on Saturday, three months after he allegedly executed it in cold blood.Mahesh Saini, 37, a car financing executive at a private bank in Jaipur, had grown weary of his wife's persistent requests for a separate house. The couple’s domestic disputes had become a daily occurrence in their Jaipur home, slowly poisoning their relationship.While Parul saw these arguments as steps toward building their future, Mahesh was plotting a sinister end to their conflicts, police said.He took to social media to learn about the tricks of a murder that nobody can crack. “Mahesh spent hours scouring YouTube and Instagram, studying ways to commit the perfect crime. He meticulously planned every detail, even booking train tickets from Mathura to Prayagraj to make the pilgrimage story believable,” said Dy SP Dausa, Ravi Prakash Sharma.Days before the murder, he drove to Dausa, scouting for the perfect location to stage his wife's “accident.” “During the probe, we first got suspicious about him when his call detail records showed that he had visited Dausa a few days prior to the alleged accident. We came to know that he visited to find a location where he could stage the accident,” said Sharma. On Feb 18, under the pretence of visiting Maha Kumbh, Mahesh finally drove Parul toward Dausa.The last thing she would taste was a packet of chips, allegedly laced with poison, offered by the man who had once vowed to protect her. “As the poison began to take effect, Mahesh ensured his wife's fate by smothering her until her last breath left her body,” the Dy SP said.The final act of his crime involved driving the car into a carefully chosen ditch. When police arrived at the scene, they found an "unconscious" Mahesh with minor injuries and his dead wife. The performance might have earned him freedom, had it not been for Parul's family in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, who refused to accept the accident theory and demanded a deeper investigation. Three months later, the truth emerged through cell phone records, revealing Mahesh's reconnaissance trips to Dausa. Under questioning, the facade crumbled, and he confessed to the calculated murder of his wife, police said.