Dehradun: The demand to reveal the name of the ‘VIP guest’ in the Ankita Bhandari murder case intensified after the former chief minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat sat on a 24-hour dharna at a park in Dehradun on Monday.
Speaking to media persons, he said that people want to know the name of the VIP to whom the receptionist refused to provide special service.
Ankita Bhandari murder case
Ankita Bhandari, aged 19 years, was the receptionist at a resort in Uttarakhand’s Pauri district.
In September, her body was recovered from a canal. Her post-mortem report revealed that she died because of suffocation and drowning in water.
During the investigation, it was found that Ankita had reportedly refused to provide ‘special service’ to a VIP guest at the resort owned by Pulkit Arya, the son of now-expelled BJP leader Vinod Arya.
Two former staffers of the resort have alleged that girls were brought here from outside and asked to ‘please’ the guests.
After the investigation, Uttarakhand police filed a chargesheet in December against three persons.
Pulkit Arya was arrested for allegedly pushing her into the canal following an altercation. Two more people – Ankit Gupta and Saurabh Bhaskar, were also arrested in the case.
Narco test
The police wanted to conduct Narco and polygraph tests on the three accused in the case. However, on Thursday, they refused to under tests.
The counsel appearing for the accused said in the Judicial Magistrate Court in Kotdwar, Uttarkhand that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did not explain why it wanted to conduct narco and polygraph tests after filing the charge sheet.
After the disagreement by the accused, the Judge of Judicial Magistrate, Kotdwar Bhavna Pandey has fixed the date of January 3, 2023, for the next hearing.
With inputs from agencies
