Dehradun: Uttarakhand witnessed protests on Saturday against the murder of a resort receptionist Ankita Bhandari, the police said. Immediately after the recovery of the 19-year-old girl’s body from the Chilla canal on Saturday, people’s anger spilled over the streets of Rishikesh. The protesters are demanding capital punishment for the murderer, Pulkit Arya, son of a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and owner of the resort.
From Ankita’s Whatsapp chat, it came to light that the resort owner told her to provide sexual favours to guests, and as she refused to do that, Pulkit Arya, together with the manager and the assistant manager of the resort pushed her into the canal. The angry mob vandalised the vehicle of Yamkeshwar legislator Renu Bisht. Sensing trouble, the legislator left the city. The BJP expelled Vinod Arya and Pulkit’s younger brother Arya from the party.
While the opposition burnt an effigy of the Uttarakhand government, the protesters also vandalised the resort. Immediately after that, Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami razed the resort to ground.
