Ankita Bhandari’s parents stage a protest to demand a CBI investigation into her death.
Ankita Bhandari’s parents protested in Rishikesh on Tuesday, demanding that the CBI investigate her death.
Ankita, a receptionist at the Vanantara resort near Rishikesh, was allegedly murdered in September by the resort’s owner, Pulkit Arya, and two employees after she refused to give in to pressure to provide “additional services” to a “VIP” guest.
Arya, the son of a now-expelled BJP leader, is being held along with the other two defendants in the case.
Ankita’s father, Virendra Singh Bhandari, claims that the SIT investigating the case is under pressure to protect the guilty, and that his request for a CBI investigation has gone unanswered.
Bhandari and his wife joined the ongoing dharna in Rishikesh organised by a social organisation named Yuva Nyay Sangharsh Samiti to demand justice for Ankita.
For more than a month, the Samiti has held a sit-in and a relay fast in Rishikesh’s Koyal Ghati neighbourhood.
“Evidence in the case was quickly destroyed just a day after the incident.” The accused’s residences in a nearby factory were also set on fire. “We don’t trust the SIT probe,” Ankita’s father remarked at the protest site.
More than a month after the SIT launched its probe into the spectacular murder that sparked widespread public anger, neither a charge sheet nor the identity of the VIP has been released.
“The SIT is under duress.” It is protecting the guilty. “Our demand for a CBI investigation into our daughter’s murder has also been rejected,” Bhandari said, adding that he wants the guilty sentenced to death immediately.