By Arun Pratap Singh
Nainital, 30 Aug: The Uttarakhand High Court today heard the bail plea of Saurabh Bhaskar, one of the accused in the infamous Ankita Bhandari murder case. Bhaskar has been named as the second accused in the case. While hearing the case here, today, the single bench comprising Justice Ravindra Maithani rejected the bail plea of accused Saurabh Bhaskar.
During the hearing, the prosecution informed the Court that the location of accused Saurabh Bhaskar has been revealed to be at the crime scene.
During the hearing in the court, the state government and the victim’s family through their counsels argued that the murder of Ankita Bhandari was a very serious crime. The prosecution also argued that, so far, all the witnesses in their statements recorded in lower courts have also ‘confirmed’ that the accused were present when the crime was committed. It was also claimed that the accused had repeatedly pressurised Ankita Bhandari to provide ‘service’ to some VIP. The location of the accused was also found at the crime scene during forensic investigation at the time the crime was committed. It was further argued that the deceased has also mentioned the accused in her WhatsApp chat. It was stated on behalf of the victim’s family that the accused had vandalised the resort to hide the evidence after the crime. They informed the court that the CCTV cameras of the resort were turned off and the DVR was also tampered with.
It may be recalled that Ankita Bhandari, a resident of Srikot Dobh in Pauri Garhwal district, was working as a receptionist at Vanantra Resort in Yamkeshwar Block of district Pauri. She suddenly went missing from the resort on 18 September, 2022. Around the same time, Vanantra Resort owner Pulkit Arya, the main accused in the murder case, had filed a missing person report to mislead Ankita’s family. As the area was not serviced by the regular police, the information regarding the disappearance of Ankita Bhandari was shared with the Revenue official (Patwari), Vaibhav Pratap, who did not inform anyone regarding the incident. In fact, the Patwari was allegedly seen frequently with the main accused, Pulkit Arya. Once the issue became a hot topic, regular police was pressed into the case and the patwari was transferred. After which, Ankita Bhandari’s body was recovered from the Chilla Canal on 24 September 2022, a full six days after she had disappeared
Vanantra Resort owner Pulkit Arya, Ankit Gupta and Saurabh Bhaskar have been accused of pushing Ankita into the Chilla Canal, causing her to drown. Apart from this, Pulkit Arya has also been accused of pressurising Ankita to do wrong things in the resort, which she refused, and this allegedly became the reason for her death. After the arrest by the police, all the accused are in jail. It is not still clear whether any possible involvement of the patwari has been seriously investigated by the SIT formed to investigate the Ankita Bhandari case. Arya’s family was linked with the ruling party. After the incident, two of the family members were expelled from the party.
