Aloke B Lal, the former DGP of Uttarakhand, has said that the demolition of Pulkit Arya's resort destroyed crucial evidence in the Ankita Bhandari murder case. He said the procedure for the demolition of the resort wasn't followed.
"It seems to me that the proper procedure of demolition of the so-called illegal resort was not followed in this case. Usually, a show-cause notice is issued before any such exercise is undertaken," Lal told the news agency PTI.
"However, in this case, bulldozers razed portions of the resort in the dead of night without any prior notice. The sudden action must have destroyed crucial evidence in the case," he added.
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Lal said the administration had destroyed the resort in a hasty fashion in order to appear as effective.
He also wondered if the accused themselves demolished the premises.
Ankita was allegedly thrown into a lake by BJP leader Vinod Arya's son Pulkit. Ankita and Pulkit had been having altercations as the resort owner wanted to force her into prostitution, police said.
Ankita had joined the resort just three weeks before her death.
Pulkit allegedly told the staff of the resort to prepare the food for four people, including him and Ankita, and even went to her room to give food to give the impression that she was there. He had allegedly murdered Ankita by then.
He also lodged a police complaint saying she had been missing since morning.
The former officer said in such cases, videography of the incident wasn't the proof of crime but strands of hair, sweat, saliva or semen form concrete evidence.
"Mattresses in such cases may contain vital evidence like strands of hair or semen drops," the former DGP said.
He pointed out that revenue police were investigating the crime and not the regular police.
"Revenue police is both untrained and unequipped to handle murder cases. Why was the case allowed to lie with it for four days? Murder cases are time-sensitive. Delay leads to loss of evidence and the case becomes more difficult to unravel," he said.
The Uttarakhand government has now formed an SIT to probe the matter.
With inputs from PTI
