An Uttarakhand court on Friday awarded a life term to a BJP leader’s son and two others for a teenaged receptionist’s murder, marking a rare example of a grieving father’s protests triggering a public agitation and bringing the powerful to heel.

Pulkit Arya, son of politician Vinod Arya who was suspended from the BJP after the young man’s arrest, and his associates murdered the 19-year-old receptionist for refusing to provide “special services” to a guest at Pulkit’s resort, the court said.

WhatsApp messages sent by the girl to a friend before her murder suggested the guest was a “VIP”, but the state government has resisted all pressure to identify him.

Reena Negi, additional session judge of Kotdwar, said in her order that Pulkit, resort manager Saurabh Bhaskar and assistant manager Ankit Gupta had thrown the receptionist into the Chilla Canal in Rishikesh on September 18, 2022.

The victim’s father told reporters he would approach the high court seeking the death sentence for the three convicts. He also spoke of being “under pressure from certain quarters” but did not elaborate.

Other than life sentences for murder, all three convicts have been handed two separate five-year sentences each for causing the disappearance of evidence and violating the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, Awanish Negi, counsel for the victim’s father, told reporters.

Pulkit, owner of the Yamkeshwar Vanantara Resort in Pauri Garhwal district, has been awarded a further two-year term “for demanding sexual favours from the receptionist”, the counsel said.

“They will spend their entire lives in jail,” he said.

Vinod Arya, who once enjoyed the rank of a state minister as chairman of the Mati Kala (Pottery) Board, declined to speak to the media. A source close to him said he was preparing to appeal the verdict in the high court.

The BJP had suspended Arya from the party for six years after Pulkit and his two associates were arrested on September 24, 2022, and the girl’s body was fished out of the canal.

The victim, who was a resident of Srinagar in Pauri Garhwal, had been hired as a receptionist at the resort only a few days before her murder. Her WhatsApp messages to her friend said Pulkit was pressuring her to provide sexual favours to a visiting VIP.

After she went “missing” on September 18, 2022, Pulkit and his friends allegedly mounted pressure on police to register a suicide case and implicate the friend she had confided in.

However, the sight of the grieving father travelling helplessly from one police station to another, seeking justice, galvanised local people in Rishikesh into beginning a demonstration against the Aryas, blaming them for the girl’s disappearance. The agitation spread to other parts of the state and continued for months.

The public’s suspicion of a cover-up effort was prompted by the demolition of the portion of the resort where the receptionist stayed, the exercise apparently supervised by a BJP leader. Vinod Arya was allegedly seen at the time sipping tea in a senior police officer’s chamber.

Fearing he would be framed, the girl’s friend rushed to Pauri Garhwal from Kashmir, where he worked, and shared every electronic detail with the protesters, media and senior police officers, bolstering the evidence against Pulkit.

The public pressure forced the Pushkar Singh Dhami government into setting up a special investigation team that questioned 97 witnesses and placed a 500-page chargesheet before the court.

Speaking to reporters outside the court, the victim’s father on Friday asked why the state’s BJP government was not revealing who the “VIP” guest was.

“The entire state protested demanding for justice forme and the entire state also wants to know the name of the VIP for whom the suspended BJP leader’s son was pushing her into the flesh trade,”he said.

“The people are with usbut the state government appears uninterested in providing complete justice tomy daughter. I am constantly under pressure from certain quarters.”

The convicts were seen smiling and laughing while being brought out of thecourt. Saurabh laughed and waved at some of his friends. A smiling Pulkit carried abag that he didn’t seem tohave when he was brought to the court.

Awanish Negi, the counsel for the girl’s father, said each of the three convicts would have to pay a ₹50,000 fine to the court and an additional ₹4 lakh to the victim’sfamily as compensation for legal expenses.

Sources said Arya, who allegedly built the resort on forestland allotted for ayurvedic research, remained in close touch with BJP leaders despite his suspension.

“He can be seen at their homes and they at his,” a resident said.