Probe CDRs, locations of Dushyant Gautam, Ajay Kumar: Ankita’s father to CM

As Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami sticks to his stance that a decision on the demand for a CBI probe into the Ankita Bhandari murder will be taken after consultations with the victim’s family, Ankita’s father has now spelt out his demands with precision — and urgency.

Responding directly to the chief minister’s statement, Virendra Singh Bhandari has called not only for a CBI investigation but also for the retrieval of call detail records and location data of BJP national general-secretary Dushyant Gautam and Ajay Kumar. Gautam is also the BJP’s Uttarakhand in-charge, while Kumar serves as the party’s organisational general-secretary in the state.

Bhandari has also demanded that investigators examine the call records of the three convicts — Pulkit Arya, Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta — who are currently serving life sentences for the murder. He has sought records covering a specific and critical window: from 17 to 23 September 2022, up to 3.00 am. In addition, he has called for the call data of local MLA Renu Bisht to be brought under scrutiny.

As these demands gained traction, the streets of state capital Dehradun witnessed a show of solidarity. On Wednesday, 7 January, former soldiers marched through the city, calling for justice for Ankita. Simultaneously, Congress’s Uttarakhand president Ganesh Godiyal sharpened his attack on the state government, once again questioning chief minister Dhami’s role in the case.

“If the SIT has recorded statements from those who bulldozed the Vanantra Resort,” Godiyal wrote on X, “then it must tell the people of Uttarakhand who gave the order.”

In a separate post, he framed the question more starkly: “The question to the state’s DGP and chief minister is straightforward — who ordered the bulldozers to move in on the Vanantra Resort the very next night after Ankita Bhandari’s body was recovered?”

The chief minister, for his part, had addressed the media in Dehradun on Tuesday, 6 January, questioning the authenticity of an audio clip purportedly featuring a conversation between former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore and his alleged second wife, Urmila Sanawar, purportedly implicating certain "VIPs" in the case.

Dhami said Rathore should come forward with evidence to substantiate the claims circulating publicly. He also said he would speak to Ankita’s parents and that the state government would take a decision based on their wishes. It was after this statement that Ankita’s father articulated his demands before journalists.

The 19-year-old Ankita, who worked as a receptionist at the Vanantra Resort in Yamkeshwar, was murdered in September 2022 after allegedly refusing to provide “special services” to a VIP. Her body was recovered on 24 September from a canal near Rishikesh. Following a trial, a Kotdwar court convicted the resort's owner Pulkit Arya and his associates Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta, sentencing all three to life imprisonment.

Before her death, Ankita had told her friend Pushpdeep in WhatsApp messages that Pulkit — son of locally influential former BJP leader Vinod Arya — was pressuring her to comply with demands to provide special services to a VIP, messages that later became a key part of the prosecution narrative.

Three years on, the case has returned to the centre of public life in Uttarakhand with the audio clip of a conversation between Rathore and Sanawar going viral — though National Herald does not independently verify the recording — triggering fresh protests across the state. Once again, the streets are echoing with demands for a CBI probe and for the alleged VIP to be identified and held accountable.