Former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore and former party leader Urmila Sanawar, who had alleged that “VIPs” with links to the ruling dispensation were behind the murder of a resort receptionist in Uttarakhand’s Rishikesh in 2022, have agreed to a narco analysis test.
“I want to undergo narco analysis and lie-detection test in the presence of media cameras,” Sanawar told reporters in Dehradun while raising apprehension that
the truth would never come out if the test were not conducted live.
She and Rathore separately appeared before a special judicial magistrate (CBI court) on Friday and gave their consent for the test. The court asked the duo to reappear on October 26 before a final order on their narco test is issued.
Sanawar claims she is Rathore’s second wife, but their relationship soured last year after she found out that he was already married.
Based on her private conversations with Rathod, Sanawar had alleged in December last year that Dushyant Kumar Gautam, then BJP national general secretary and party minder for Uttarakhand and the current governor of Sikkim, was one of the VIPs who wanted “special service” from the 19-year-old receptionist who was killed for refusing to oblige.
Now-suspended BJP leader Vinod Arya owned Vanantara Resort in Rishikesh, where the girl was employed. He served as the chairman of the Uttarakhand Pottery Board and enjoyed a rank equivalent to a state minister. His son Pulkit Arya and his two aides are serving life terms in Almora jail for the murder.
Gautam had filed a defamation case against both Rathod and Sanawar in Delhi High Court and dubbed the allegation “a case of political vendetta”. The high court had asked several social media handles to remove the posts linking Gautam with the murder.
The parents of the victim and several social groups are organising dharnas from Uttarakhand to New Delhi to press the government to withdraw its decision to make Gautam the governor of Sikkim till the inquiry is completed.