Dehradun: Urmila Sanawar had already said yes to the narco test. She said so in the CBI court on Friday, without conditions. Two days later, Haridwar police picked her up from her home in Saharanpur's Govindnagar, and by Sunday night a second FIR had been registered against her in Dehradun.
Neither case is the murder case.
The first was filed at Ranipur Kotwali in Haridwar late on October 24, on a written complaint from Deepika Rathore, daughter of former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore. It alleges obscene and defamatory posts on social media, and WhatsApp calls demanding that a property be transferred to Sanawar's name, a payment of ₹5 crore and threats to kill the complainant. Sanawar describes herself as Rathore's wife; he denies it.
The second FIR, at Kotwali Nagar in Dehradun, came from a resident named Sagar, whose complaint objects to a video recorded outside the CBI court in which, it says, Sanawar levelled "highly indecent, inappropriate, false and malicious" allegations against Sikkim Governor Dushyant Kumar Gautam, BJP national general secretary BL Santosh and a woman named Aarti Gaur. Police have invoked sections 79, 352, 353 and 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The allegations are untested in court.
Sanawar is the woman whose purported audio conversation with Rathore dragged the 2022 killing of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari back into the headlines. Ankita worked at the reception of Vanantra Resort in Pauri. She was killed on September 18, 2022, and her body was recovered from the Chilla canal four days later. Resort owner Pulkit Arya and two employees are serving life sentences.
Congress leaders went straight at the timing. Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja, in a post on X, asked why a new case had been registered "just before the narco test" and called it an attempt to stop the truth about the VIP's role from coming out. State party spokesperson Pratima Singh said the government was "using every possible tactic" to shield influential people, and asked why the CBI had not yet questioned Gautam or Yamkeshwar MLA Renu Bisht.
The political temperature had already risen at India Gate, where Ankita's parents are sitting in protest against Gautam's appointment as Sikkim's Governor. Her father, Virendra Singh Bhandari, has demanded that the appointment be cancelled until the CBI inquiry ends. On Sunday evening, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reached the spot and sat with the family.
Sanawar was to record her final consent before the court in Dehradun on Monday.