Dehradun: In the latest development in the Ankita Bhandari murder case, a couple of past employees who worked at the Vanantara resort revealed that Pulkit Arya has been chronically involved in the harassment of many of his employees in the past. A female former general manager and her husband working as the hotel staff have alleged in an exclusive conversation with ETV Bharat that Arya is a chronic abuser, who follows a certain pattern of abuse with all his victims.
The ex-manager claimed that Arya was a person of a 'problematic character' with sexual intentions towards his female employees, as well as the female visitors at his resort. Alleging that the culprit was an alcoholic and stayed in a perpetually intoxicated state, she said her husband was falsely accused of theft and both of them were tortured on those grounds for a long time.
"I and my husband started working at the resort together. During those two months of working there, we were regularly harassed, both mentally and physically, until we decided to run away. He had bad intentions for me as well and had once asked me to come to his room while he was intoxicated. I had refused," the ex-manager claimed. She further said that Pulkit Arya's own wife had told her 'not to work there'. "Swati ma'am, Pulkit's wife, had visited once and told me that it is not safe for me to work there," she said.
Arya was purportedly infamous among the neighbors and past employees, who also warned the woman, asking her and her husband to stop working there. "A watchman had warned us, told us that Arya abuses his employees, does not pay their salaries, and gets into frequent fights with them. Another employee, who I worked with, Saurabh Bhasker, also used to tell me to keep a distance from Arya's affairs. I was also verbally abused once in front of everyone by Pulkit Arya," she said.
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Arya had a record of getting into frequent fights with the visitors at the resort too, all of which he did under the influence of alcohol. The ex-manager also informed that 'some girls frequently visited the resort, but were never put on record as vistors'. "But when his father, Vinod Arya came to the resort, Pulkit would disappear. We would be asked to tell him that Pulklit has been gone for the past few days and is not here at the resort. All the girls, alcohol, and non-veg would also disappear from the resort," she added.
As the couple went through these ordeals every day, it became unbearable for them when they were accused of theft. As informed by the ex-manager, one of the guests had left a speaker at the resort, which she, as the manager, took into her possession to give it to Arya when he comes back. "He did not come back for a long time. And when he did, he right away accused us of stealing the speaker. We tried to seek help from the police, but they asked us to reach out to the Patwari, but nothing helped," she said.
"The Patwari was in his favor too. They tried to scare us first, threatened us of being 'treated by the police for theft'. But eventually, the Patwari asked Pulkit what is to be done, and Pulkit demanded we work for him for as long as he wants as a punishment for our alleged crime. He did not pay us salaries. We finally had to run away, which we somehow managed to do," she said.
The victim also alleged that the culprit took it in writing from both of them that they will work there for as long as Pulkit wishes. ETV Bharat has gotten a hold of several such signed documents from the resort, wherein his past employees have confessed their crimes and have agreed to work for Pulkit at his will. As the investigation in the case moves forward, this statement has created a wide scope for speculations that Pulkit Arya and his accomplices may be guilty of several such other crimes that the investigating officers may now dig into.
