Ankita Bhandari had barely been able to work at the resort for around twenty days when news of her disappearance emerged on 19 September 2022. Notably, the first missing report was filed by the resort owner himself, Pulkit Arya, with the revenue police, not with the regular police but.
In Uttarakhand, a system dating back to the British era grants patwaris (revenue officials) limited policing powers in hilly regions. Since the area where the resort is located falls under a revenue jurisdiction, it is apparent that Pulkit Arya tried to avoid the regular police hence the missing person complaint was deliberately submitted to the patwari.
When Ankita Bhandari’s father, Virendra Singh Bhandari, learned of his daughter’s disappearance, he approached multiple police stations in Rishikesh, including the Laxman Jhula police station, the Muni Ki Reti police station, and the Chilla police outpost. Instead of recognising the gravity of the situation, officials at all these locations deflected responsibility, on the pretext that the case fell under a revenue area. Even the patwari who registered the missing complaint refused to speak to Ankita Bhandari’s father properly.
Ankita’s disappearance attracted attention in the media, and Pauri District Magistrate transferred the case from the revenue police to the regular police. On 24 September 2022, near the Chilla Barrage, the police and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) recovered the body of Ankita Bhandari. On the same day, the Uttarakhand government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by DIG P. Renuka Devi to probe the case.
The investigation revealed that on 18 September 2022, resort owner Pulkit Arya, along with his two associates, Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta, took Ankita Bhandari to the Chilla Barrage on the pretext of an outing. There, they allegedly pushed her into the barrage, killing her.
However, the motive that came to light shocked and enraged the entire state of Uttarakhand. Ankita Bhandari’s friend Pushpdip informed the police about WhatsApp chats he had exchanged with Ankita shortly before her death. In these messages dated 17 September 2022, Ankita wrote that Ankit Gupta had told her that a “VIP” was expected to visit the resort on 19 September and would require “special service,” for which the VIP was willing to pay up to ₹10,000. According to the same chat, Ankit Gupta also asked Ankita to arrange two or three more girls. Ankita Bhandari refused to comply and expressed her intention to leave the resort. Pulkit Arya and his accomplices prevented her from leaving, partly by intimidating her and partly by trying to placate and mislead her. Subsequently, they took her out on the pretext of an outing and murdered her, in an attempt to project the incident as if she had simply gone missing on her own.
Once the “VIP” angle came to light, it became evident that the resort functioned as a prostitution hub for influential and powerful individuals. Ankita Bhandari’s chats themselves indicate that as early as 13 September 2022, three girls had been brought to the resort. Despite this, the police did not pursue this line of investigation any further.
The people started asking for the identity of the VIP, and rattled by the growing public outrage the BJP government in Uttarakhand attempted to deflect attention by staging a bulldozer action. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and the then Director General of Police, Ashok Kumar, formally announced the bulldozer action on Vanantara resort through public tweets. Shockingly, the bulldozer was deployed only on the specific room in the resort where Ankita Bhandari had been staying. It was evident that this action was aimed at destroying crucial evidence.
The demand for revealing the identity of the VIP, for whom “special services” were sought and whose refusal allegedly led Pulkit Arya and his associates to murder Ankita Bhandari, continued to gain momentum. Yet, throughout this period, the Uttarakhand government and the police SIT remained conspicuously silent on this crucial aspect of the case.
On 30 May 2025, the court of Additional Sessions Judge in Kotdwar sentenced three accused, Pulkit Arya, Saurabh Bhaskar, and Ankit Gupta, to life imprisonment. In its detailed 160-page judgment, the court explicitly acknowledged that the “VIP” factor was the central reason behind Ankita Bhandari’s murder.
Without the identity of the VIP, there is a deep sense that justice remains incomplete. Ankita Bhandari’s mother, Smt. Soni Devi, has publicly named BJP’s Uttarakhand Organisation General Secretary Ajay Kumar as the VIP. However, the BJP as well as the state government maintained complete silence on this serious allegation.
In December 2025, this case and specifically the unresolved VIP angle resurfaced from an entirely unexpected quarter. Urmila Sanawar, who claims to be the second wife of a former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore, played an audio recording of her conversation with Suresh Rathore during a Facebook Live broadcast. In this audio, Suresh Rathore can be heard naming BJP National General Secretary and Uttarakhand in-charge Dushyant Gautam as the “VIP”. In the same recording, Rathore also mentions the name of Ajay Kumar, BJP’s Uttarakhand Organisational General Secretary.
This audio disclosure once again brought the question of justice to the forefront. Public demands grew louder that the alleged VIPs should be brought before the law. One of the alleged VIPs, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, initially chose silence and later adopted a strategy of intimidation. He first wrote to the Uttarakhand Home Secretary, seeking action against 28 social media accounts and handles. Subsequently, he filed FIRs in Dehradun against Suresh Rathore, Urmila Sanawar, and opposition political parties, and also initiated a defamation suit worth ₹2.01 crore in the Delhi High Court.
What further shocked people was that the Delhi High Court, on the very first hearing and without hearing the other parties, passed an ex parte order directing the named individuals and political parties to remove all social media content referring to Dushyant Gautam as the VIP.
A renewed mass movement demanding justice for Ankita Bhandari began to gain momentum, the BJP initially dismissed it as a conspiracy orchestrated by the opposition. Many BJP ministers and Members of Parliament offered explanations in the media, but sharp and persistent questioning by journalists and activists left them visibly cornered.
Additional SP Shekhar Suyal, who was part of the SIT, and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami himself, attempted to project before the media that there was no VIP at all in the case. Whereas available evidence suggests the contrary. Ankita’s WhatsApp chats, as well as the court’s judgment in the case, clearly establish that the murder took place because she refused to provide “special service” to a VIP. When an SIT officer denies the existence of a VIP, it effectively amounts to repudiating the conclusions of his own investigation. Similarly, the Chief Minister’s denial of the VIP angle not only is an attempt to shield his party leaders named as VIPs, but also potentially paves the way for the eventual weakening of the case against those already serving sentences for the murder.
Against this thousands of people marched towards the Chief Minister’s residence on 4 January demanding a CBI inquiry under the supervision of the Supreme Court into the VIP angle. This was followed by a statewide Uttarakhand bandh on 11 January.
Now, the Pushkar Singh Dhami government has announced a CBI investigation under mounting public pressure. However, even as this announcement was made, the entry of dubious and controversial figures into the narrative, apparently with tacit political patronage, continued to raise serious questions. Urmila Sanawar, who had suddenly gone missing from public view, reappeared alongside a man named Darshan Bharti, who had no prior connection whatsoever with the Ankita Bhandari case and he has been known in Uttarakhand primarily for spreading communal hatred as part of Hindutva agenda.
Very unexpectedly one Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi, described as an environmentalist, had lodged an FIR in the matter. He has been perceived largely as a government-aligned ‘environmentalist’. Notably, over the past three years, he had shown no inclination with the struggle for justice for Ankita Bhandari, never even issued a public statement on the issue. His sudden filing of an FIR, followed by the government’s assertion that this very FIR would be referred to the CBI, gave rise to a fresh set of suspicions regarding the intent and direction of the investigation.
Following public objections and protests, the Uttarakhand Police issued a statement saying that a letter submitted by Ankita Bhandari’s parents to the CM earlier would also be added to the case record. Earlier, after maintaining silence for nearly fifteen days, the Chief Minister stated that the future course of action would be decided after consulting Ankita Bhandari’s parents. And, in apparent haste, Ankita’s parents were brought to Dehradun the very next day, and they reiterated their demand and submitted a written statement to the Chief Minister. In this letter, they categorically demanded a CBI investigation under the supervision of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, specifically to ensure the disclosure of the VIP involved in the Ankita Bhandari case.
When Ankita Bhandari’s parents had already submitted a written demand, it is logical that their letter ought to have been treated as the primary complaint and foundation for the CBI probe. Instead, the decision to base the investigation on an FIR filed by Anil Joshi, clearly indicates that the BJP is determined to leave no stone unturned in protecting its own criminally implicated VIPs.
These incidents have once again laid bare reality behind the BJP’s slogans of “chaal, charitra aur chehra” and “Beti Bachao” and its actual conduct. The BJP continues to deploy full weight of the state to shield leaders accused of sexual violence.
Whether it is Kuldeep Sengar, Ram Rahim, Asaram Bapu, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh or the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, the BJP’s record is a recurring pattern of protection of the accused. In Uttarakhand alone, cases involving BJP leaders - from a mandal president in Salt, to a councillor in Rudrapur, to the chairman of the Nainital Milk Federation - with serious allegations of sexual assaults, yet the party’s response towards them has remained conspicuously soft. In Haridwar, the situation was even more disturbing, where a BJP woman leader facilitated the gang rape of her own daughter and is currently in jail for the crime.
The Ankita Bhandari case has further exposed how, under BJP rule in Uttarakhand, the tourism and resort industry is becoming a front for organised prostitution catering to influential and powerful individuals. Alongside the ongoing plunder of the state’s resources- water, forests, and land- white-collar VIPs preyed upon young women who step out of their homes in search of livelihood and independence.
The Ankita Bhandari case is no longer just about one brutal murder; it stands as a stark indictment of a political system that systematically prioritises the protection of power over justice, dignity, and the safety of women.
A prominent figure of the Left–democratic movement in Uttarakhand, CPIML leader Comrade Raja Bahuguna, who passed away recently, often used to say in his speeches during the Uttarakhand statehood movement that Uttarakhand must not be allowed to develop into the infamous “sex-hub model” of tourism. By this he clearly meant a model of tourism in which women are reduced to mere bodies, priced and consumed for pleasure. The struggle to save Uttarakhand from this anti-woman, anti-human, and anti-people government has become urgent and unavoidable.
People’s struggle on streets played a crucial role in the fight for justice for Ankita Bhandari. This case moved further from an SIT to a CBI investigation solely through struggles on the streets, no doubt that the justice in the future will also be achieved only when streets continue reverberating with slogans for justice for Ankita.
