By SUNIL NEGI
The Ankita Bhandari case is not just a murder case. It is the open wound of Uttarakhand’s conscience, a wound that has refused to heal for four years, because justice in it is still incomplete.
Every Uttarakhandi, especially every woman, every youth, every student and every senior citizen, still shivers when they recall the story of a 19-year-old innocent girl from a poor family in Village Shrikot Khola, who stepped out of her home only to earn for the sustenance of her family.
She was employed as a receptionist at Vanantra Resort in Yamkeshwar block of Pauri Garhwal. The owner of the resort was no ordinary man. He was Pulkit Arya, son of Vinod Arya, a former Minister of State in Uttarakhand and a powerful BJP leader, whose elder son Ankit Arya was also holding a ministerial rank as Vice Chairman of the Uttarakhand OBC Commission.
This innocent brave girl was told to provide “special service” to a VIP guest. When she resisted being pushed into prostitution, she was brutally killed. She mysteriously disappeared on September 18, 2022 and her body was found on September 25, 2022 from the Chila Canal in Rishikesh.
The beginning of this fight for justice itself tells the story of how the system tried to hush it up. When Ankita went missing, her traumatized parents ran from pillar to post to register an FIR. The Revenue Police Patwari of Yamkeshwar was allegedly non-cooperative and was helping the culprits. It was journalist-turned-advocate Ashutosh Negi who came to the rescue of the shattered family and after immense pressure and struggle, got the FIR registered at the Revenue Police post. Had it not been for him, the case would have been buried then and there.
It took three years of tiring trial in the Additional District and Sessions Court, Kotdwar to finally nail the three accused – Pulkit Arya, Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta – who were awarded rigorous life imprisonment. But the streets of Uttarakhand know that the real story is still untold. There were umpteen protests, demonstrations, dharnas, candle marches from Dehradun to Delhi and massive media coverage, because the main culprit behind this murder – the alleged VIP – is still at large.
The State’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) in its entire investigation claimed it found “nothing credible” about the VIP. This despite the hard fact that the chats of the deceased Ankita with her friends and the junior staff of Vanantra resort unambiguously revealed her horror. She had told them that she was being compelled to provide special service to a VIP and that she had no option but to run away from the resort. She died the very next day. How can an investigating agency ignore such clinching digital evidence?
And then, the most crucial piece of evidence – the very room in Vanantra where the entire conspiracy unfolded before she was thrown into the canal – was bulldozed and demolished overnight by local MLA Renu Bisht on the instructions of a higher-up. The official excuse was “illegal encroachment”. The people of Uttarakhand saw it as a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence to protect the VIP, allegedly belonging to the ruling party.
The only hope for the parents was the judiciary. Advocate Navneesh Negi, the dexterous and fearless senior advocate of Nainital High Court, has been fighting for the aggrieved parents since 2022. He filed a writ petition in the Uttarakhand High Court demanding a CBI enquiry to unearth the VIP angle and bring the actual conspirator to book. After a few hearings, the High Court turned down the CBI probe saying the SIT had done a “wonderful job”.
The matter was taken to the Supreme Court through eminent human rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves who fights pro-bono cases, by Navneesh Negi and Ashutosh Negi. The Supreme Court too did not allow the CBI probe at that stage and quashed the Special leave petotion.
But the streets did not remain silent. Massive and continuous protests in Uttarakhand and at Jantar Mantar in Delhi finally compelled the Chief Minister to hand over the case to the CBI. People thought truth would now come out.
Then came a sensational twist a year later. A social activist turned actress, Urmila Sanawar, who is highly vociferous on social media, leaked a chat between her and her ex-husband, former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore.
In that chat, Rathore allegedly named Dushyant Gautam, the BJP’s National General Secretary and Uttarakhand BJP in-charge, as the VIP in the Ankita Bhandari case. All hell broke loose. Social media and national media erupted with headlines naming the BJP in-charge as the alleged VIP. Dushyant Gautam vehemently denied the charge and continues to be the in-charge of Uttarakhand BJP.
And now, in a chilling development that shows how dangerous this fight has become, the same senior advocate of Nainital High Court, Navneesh Negi, who is fighting both the Ankita Bhandari case and the Mohammed Deepak case – both cases where the accused are connected to the BJP – has received a life-threatening letter from someone calling himself “Yamraj”, the Lord of Death.
The letter is sinister in its design. It is not readable with the naked eye. When seen through a lens, it reveals threats that he will be finished, first through a staged fatal accident and then through direct physical attacks. The letter is written in multiple languages to hide its origin and warrants immediate forensic examination.
This is not an ordinary threat. This is a message to every lawyer, every journalist, every activist who dares to ask: Who is the VIP?
The Bar Council of Nainital High Court has taken serious cognizance. It has held an emergency meeting, strongly condemned the threat and appealed to the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court to order an immediate, in-depth probe, nab the culprit behind the pseudonym of Yamraj and bring him to stringent justice. The Bar has warned that if such threats to advocates fighting for justice are not dealt with seriously, they may prove fatal in future.
Today, the man who stood for four years with the poor parents of a murdered daughter, who went from High Court to Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe to catch the real predator, is himself looking for protection.
The question Uttarakhand is asking today is stark: If the advocate who is fighting for Ankita is not safe, how will Ankita get justice? And if those who demand the name of the VIP are threatened with death by “Yamraj”, who is protecting that VIP?
Until the VIP is named, until the forensic examination of this threatening letter is done, and until the protectors of the powerful are exposed, the murder of Ankita Bhandari will remain not just a crime, but a blot on the soul of Devbhoomi.
Ankita was killed once on September 18. Her fight for justice is being killed every day.
SUNIL NEGI
