Days before her cold-blooded murder, Ankita Bhandari, a 19-year-old receptionist at an Uttarakhand resort owned by Pulkit Arya, son of now-expelled BJP leader Vinod Arya, had told one of her close friends about the pressure she was facing from the accused to indulge in prostitution and “service hotel guests”. In one such WhatsApp message to her friend, Ankita wrote: “I may be poor, but I won’t sell myself for Rs 10,000.”