India
Body of Missing Lawyer Found in Uttarakhand Gorge; Two Arrested
Two siblings were arrested in Bageshwar, Uttarakhand, after the decomposed body of 35‑year‑old lawyer and former municipal councillor Dhirendra Parihar, also known as Kakku, was recovered from a deep gorge near the Gomti River. Parihar had been missing since October 17, when he left home for the Bageshwar market and never returned. His mother, Nandi Parihar, filed a missing‑person complaint on October 31. Police investigated the case using CCTV footage and mobile phone records, discovering that Parihar’s last contact was with a woman named Lata Bhandari (42) of Numaishkhet. Bhandari admitted that Parihar had visited her house on the night of October 17 and that she struck him twice on the head with an iron rod after he allegedly tried to sexually assault her. She then hid the body under a cot. The next day, Bhandari told her brother, Tribhuvan Singh Bisht (39) of Kathayatbada, about the incident. The two placed the body in the back of a car on October 18 and dumped it into a gorge near Dhunai Bend on the Bageshwar–Girechhina motor road. Police arrested Bhandari and Bisht on charges of murder, criminal conspiracy and causing the disappearance of evidence. A joint police and fire service search operation recovered the body from Digar Patal in Thunai, off Nadigaon Road. The remains were taken to the district hospital mortuary for a post‑mortem. The iron rod used in the assault and the vehicle used to transport the body were seized, and the investigation continues.