New Delhi: A mahapanchayat convened in Dehradun on Sunday (February 8) passed a resolution seeking the removal of Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami from his post over the mishandling of the Ankita Bhandari murder case.Bhandari was a 19-year-old woman who worked as a receptionist at the Vanantra Resort near Rishikesh. She was murdered in 2022 by the resort’s owner Pulkit Arya, son of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinod Arya, and Pulkit’s two associates, Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta. In January, Dhami had ordered a CBI probe into the case over the involvement of a VIP – alleged to be BJP’s national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.MahapanchayatThe mahapanchayat, convened by the Ankita Nyay Yatra Joint Struggle Forum, saw the participation of over 500 people from 40 organisations. Political parties from the INDIA bloc also extended their support to the gathering.Among the resolutions passed at the mahapanchayat were Dhami’s removal and his inclusion in the CBI probe ordered last month. The mahapanchayat also demanded the cancellation of a separate FIR filed by Padma Bhushan awardee Anil Joshi seeking a probe against the VIP allegedly involved in the case.Joshi, an environmentalist, who runs the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, had filed an FIR in the matter on January 9 this year – the same day that the CBI probe was recommended. This was seen as an attempt to shield the VIP allegedly involved in the case. Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat, while questioning the motive behind Joshi’s FIR, said that an investigation based on a government-sponsored individual would not be impartial. The resolutions passed on Sunday demanded that the CBI probe should not be conducted on the basis of Joshi’s FIR.Ankita’s father, Virendra Bhandari, said, “I had given a representation to the CM seeking a probe under the supervision of a retired Supreme Court judge. An FIR was registered on the complaint of Dr Anil Joshi, with whom I have no relationship.”Bhandari also asked for the call records in the case to be probed. “If my daughter did not bow, how can I?” he asked. “There was no need for this new FIR, as the Ankita Bhandari case is governed by the original FIR that was initially registered at Laxmanjhula police station. That FIR was investigated, followed by the filing of a chargesheet, and a trial was conducted in the Sessions Court at Kotdwar, culminating in the conviction of three accused,” Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana had said questioning the fresh FIR.A memorandum addressed to the President was also sent through the mahapanchayat.