Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday recommended a CBI probe into the murder of a resort receptionist in Rishikesh, more than three years after she was killed allegedly after she refused to provide “special service” to a “VIP” guest and her parents demanded an investigation by a central agency.

BJP leader Dhami told reporters in Dehradun: “I spoke to the parents of the sister who was killed and decided to hand over the case to the CBI to respect their sentiments.”

The chief minister had constituted a special investigation team a few days after the murder of the receptionist and said several times in the past that there was no need for any other inquiry.

The 19-year-old receptionist of Vanantara Resort, owned by now-suspended BJP leader Vinod Arya and run by his son Pulkit, was murdered and thrown into a canal on September 18, 2022.

Her body was fished out of the water after three days when her father sat on a dharna in Rishikesh and protests erupted across the state against the BJP government. Pulit and two managers of the resort are serving life terms for the murder.

The case sprung back into the limelight after a TV actress recently alleged that the “mystery VIP” for whom “special favours” had been solicited from the receptionist was BJP national general secretary Dushyant Gautam. Since then, there have been statewide protests demanding action against Gautam and the handover of the case to the CBI.

The Nyaya Yatra Sanyukt Sangharsh Manch, a citizens’ organisation formed to
mount pressure on the government to arrest the “VIP”, had called bandh in Uttarakhand on Sunday.

Gautam has denied the claim and lodged an FIR against the actress, Urmila Sanawar, and former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore, whom Sanawar had claimed to be the source of her information on the VIP.

A court in May 2025 awarded Pulkit and the two others life imprisonment, but the identity of the “VIP” remained unknown. Later, the police had claimed that no VIP was involved in the matter.

The parents of the deceased had said at that time that the way the resort was demolished and the belongings of their daughter were reported missing indicated something even more serious than the murder of a girl.

The deceased’s father told reporters in Kotdwar after Dhami’s announcement on Friday: “We are happy that the government has ordered a CBI probe, but can he (Dhami) tell us why he took so long? We want to know as soon as possible on whose orders the resort, including the room in which my daughter used to sleep, was razed and who was the VIP who wanted special services, refusal to accept which cost my daughter her life.”

Dhami said: “We honestly conducted inquiries into the murder of the receptionist. But some people tried to vitiate the atmosphere in the state.”