The Congress continued to organise sit-ins across Uttarakhand on Sunday demanding the arrest of BJP leader Dushyant Kumar Gautam, whom an actress has accused of being the “VIP” whose name has surfaced in the murder of a receptionist at a resort three years ago, and a CBI probe.

The Congress members took out a candle march in Dehradun on Saturday night and accused the Pushkar Singh Dhami government of being “scared of the real killers of the receptionist”.

“We won’t sit idle till the government recommends a CBI probe supervised by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. Many BJP leaders are directly or indirectly involved in the killing of a daughter of the hills. The police must arrest Gautam and other leaders whose names are now in the public domain,” said Ganesh Godiyal, president of the Uttarakhand State Congress Committee.

The 19-year-old receptionist was killed and thrown into a canal in September 2022, allegedly after she refused to “entertain a VIP guest” at the Vanantara resort near Haridwar.

Pulkit Arya — son of then BJP leader Vinod Arya, who owned the resort — is serving a life term for the murder along with the resort’s manager and assistant manager. Vinod has been suspended from the party.

However, the identity of the “VIP” guest mentioned by one of the victim’s friends to police and the trial court had remained a mystery till TV actress Urmila Sanawar on Wednesday posted videos that purportedly said several BJP leaders — referred to as “Bhattu”, “Fattu” and “Gattu” — used to exploit women employees at the resort.

The actress, who claims to have been wronged by a former BJP lawmaker, told the media on Friday that “Gattu” was none other than Gautam — a BJP national general secretary and the party’s Uttarakhand minder. She said Gautam wanted “special favour” from the receptionist and his men killed her for not “entertaining” him.

“I have evidence to prove whatever I am saying but I’ll hand them over to the police once I am assured that they would not be tampered with or destroyed because Gautam and the other accused in the murder case are very powerful,” she was quoted as telling reporters at an undisclosed location on Sunday.

Last week, Sanawar had said Suresh Rathore, BJP leader and then MLA from Jwalapur in Haridwar, had married her four years ago after falsely claiming his first wife was dead. This led the BJP to suspend Rathore for alleged bigamy.

“I warn the Congress not to use her as a tool against the BJP because she can harm them too,” Rathore told reporters on Sunday.

Gautam, a former Rajya Sabha member, has threatened legal action against Sanawar.