Ankita Bhandari murder case: Resort operator among three sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment
Kotdwar (UKD), May 30 (PTI): A court here on Friday sentenced a resort operator and his two employees to rigorous life imprisonment in the 2022 Ankita Bhandari murder case.
Bhandari (19), who worked as a receptionist at Vanantra Resort located in Yamkeshwar of Pauri district, was murdered on September 18, 2022 by resort operator Pulkit Arya and his two employees Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Reena Negi also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on all three convicts, prosecution lawyer Ajay Pant said.
According to the prosecution, Bhandari and Arya had a dispute over something after which the three pushed the woman into the Cheela canal in Rishikesh.
After her body was found from the canal, the police arrested all three.
Pulkit Arya is the son of former BJP leader Vinod Arya. As soon as the matter came to light, the party showed the door to Vinod Arya.
The murder had triggered protests by locals following which the state government formed a special investigation team to probe it.
The hearing of the case lasted for two years and eight months and during this period 47 witnesses, were examined.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
