On Saturday, a day after the Uttarakhand Police arrested three persons in the case of Ankita Bhandari who had gone missing five days ago from a resort in Pauri district, the police recovered the dead body of the deceased. Police have arrested three persons so far in the case, Pulkit Arya, owner of the Vanantra resort where Ankita worked, Pulkit’s friend Ankit Gupta and resort manager Saurabh Bhaskar, for the murder.
During the probe, it has been found that Pulkit Arya, son of former BJP minister Vinod Arya, was forcing Ankita to have sex with him and the guests of the resort as ‘service’ to them. As Ankita didn’t agree to this demand, this led to a fight between them, and Pulkit pushed her into the river on September 18. Reportedly, arrested Saurabh Bhaskar confessed to the crime and narrated the entire incident to the police.
As more details of the case are emerging, now it has come to light that a similar incident had happened in the resort eight years ago. A girl had gone missing from the same resort, but she was never found and the case remains unsolved.
One of the locals named Bittu Bhandari revealed that a similar incident had happened in the now-demolished Vanantra resort around 8 years ago. “7-8 years ago a female staff named Priyanka working at the same resort had gone missing and has not been found to date. Nobody knows what happened to her”, he said, adding that the resort managers and directors then had said that she had fled away with resort cash and a few expensive handy assets.
The Police who are investigating the case of Ankita Bhandari have said that they will look into the matter of the missing girl Priyanka and will take the necessary action required.
Police recover voice messages and chats of Ankita
In the meanwhile, during the investigation of Ankita Bhandari, the Police also recovered several voice messages and chats of Ankita with a person from Jammu. The messages indicate that Ankita was being harassed in the Vanantra resort where she worked.
According to the reports, Anikta’s friend named Deep Pushp from Jammu appeared before the Police and Ankita’s family after the incident and said that the two had become friends through Instagram and Facebook. According to Deep, he had only got Ankita this job through an online job advertisement.
During interrogation, he told the Police that Ankita had talked to him before she was murdered. “Ankita said that she was being trapped”, Pushp said adding that the resort owner and the manager had pressured Ankita to have physical relations with them and their customers. He also revealed that resort owner Pulkit Arya had molested her in an inebriated state.
“We talked at around 8:30 pm on September 17 after which her phone went off. Then I called Pulkit Arya to know where Ankita was. He told me that Ankita was in the resort, sleeping in her room. The next day Pulkit’s phone also went off. Then I called Ankit, the manager. He told me that Ankita was in the gym”, Pushp said during the investigation.
Reports mention that Pushp was worried for Ankita as nobody knew where she was. He also called the resort chef to check on the situation. “Chef said that he had not seen Ankita for hours and that the manager had gone to her room to serve her dinner. The next day the manager happened to declare that Ankita had gone missing”, Pushp said.
Ankita Bhandari joined the resort on August 28 and was reported missing on September 18. Deep Pushp mentioned that Pulkit’s behavior was very good towards Ankita in the initial days of her job. “He used to respect Ankita. When a guest of the resort once had tried to hug Ankita in a drunken state, it was Pulkit who had saved her”, he said.
He also confirmed other audio messages recovered by the Police in the case and said that she was leaving the resort on the evening of September 17 but don’t know why she went to Rishikesh with Pulkit. The audio message recovered by the Police was sent by Ankita to a staff member named Karan asking him to fetch her bag. Deep said that Ankita was a good girl and wanted to make her career out of her cooking skills and interest in hotel management.
According to the police, the accused had thrown the girl in the Rishikesh chilla after an argument. Pulkit wanted Ankita to work as a prostitute for him and his customers at the resort. Pulkit and the manager pushed her into the chilla after she refused to entertain their demands. After the incident, Pulkit and his group returned to the resort and pretended that nothing had happened. On the same night, they went to Haridwar, and from there Pulkit called the resort asking to talk to Ankita, to establish an alibi that he was not present when the girl went missing. When the resort staff told him that she is not around, he called the Revenue Police and reported that the girl had gone missing.
As reported earlier, the Uttarakhand Police have recovered the dead body of the deceased girl and have sent it to AIIMS Rishikesh for further investigation. CM Dhami meanwhile has announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team, which would be led by Deputy Inspector General of Police P Renuka Devi, to look into the case.
