Ankita Bhandari murder case: Uttarakhand HC rejects bail plea of accused Pulkit Arya

Dehradun (Uttarakhand) (India]: Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of Pulkit Arya, the main accused in the Ankita Bhandari murder case.

The court said that this is a serious crime and all the testimonies taken in the lower court so far have confirmed that all the accused were present at the spot at the time of the incident. This case was heard in a single bench of Justice Ravindra Maithani.

During the hearing in the court held on Wednesday, it was told by the family of the deceased that the resort was vandalized by the accused to destroy the evidence. The CCTV cameras of the resort were switched off and the DVR was also tampered with.

It is noteworthy that Ankita Bhandari, a resident of Pauri district, used to work in Vanantra Resort of Rishikesh. It is alleged that the resort owner Pulkit Arya and his associates Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit had murdered Ankita by pushing her into the barrage.

Ankita Bhandari was a receptionist at Vananthara Resort, who was allegedly murdered by Pulkit Arya along with his friends Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta on 18 September 2022. 19-year-old Ankita’s body was recovered from the Chilla canal in Rishikesh on September 24. She was reported missing for at least six days before the officials found her body.

On December 4, the Uttarakhand Police said that the investigation into the Ankita Bhandari murder case is almost complete. The only procedure that remains is the narco tests of the accused, for which they had sought permission from the Kotdwar court to conduct narco and polygraph tests of all three accused.

Earlier this year, the Uttarakhand government led by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami decided to name Government Nursing College Dobh (Shrikot) as Ankita Bhandari Government Nursing College.