LUCKNOW: The eight accused arrested in the alleged donation theft at the Ayodhya Ram temple were produced before a court in Ayodhya on Friday which sent them to jail in judicial custody till Monday.The accused-Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Manish Yadav, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Mishra and Subhash Srivastava-will be produced before the court again on Monday.Police also recovered Rs 79.85 lakh cash allegedly linked to the embezzled donation amount from all the accused except Subhash Srivastava from whom no cash was recovered.Also read: Hidden cams, CCTV footage helped SIT nail Ram temple donation theft accusedApart from the eight arrested persons, the FIR also mentions ‘others’ on the list of accused, indicating that more names might be added during the investigation. All of them have been booked under relevant sections of the BNS for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, dishonestly receiving stolen property.
Missing silver
Although none of the accused so far are govt employees, the invocation of Sections 13 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deals with criminal misconduct by a public servant, indicates that the scope of the probe would be expanded further. Meanwhile, confusion prevailed on Friday over the resignation of Champat Rai from the post of general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. Trust member Anil Mishra also reportedly resigned, but neither the trust nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad confirmed or denied it.Prosecution officer, Ayodhya, KC Verma confirmed to reporters that the accused will remain in jail till Monday and added that they embezzled the donations offered by devotees. “The funds were misappropriated, stolen, and embezzled by employees of the trust,” said Verma.Also read: Champat Rai steps down: Former chemistry professor who became ‘record-keeper of Ram Lalla’Preliminary investigation revealed that barring Subhash Srivastava and Tinnu Yadav the remaining six accused were associated with the bank’s outsourced cash management agency entrusted with handling the counting of donations received at the Ram temple.These six individuals were directly involved in counting the offerings when the alleged embezzlement took place. Tinnu Yadav is a long-term associate of the temple trust general secretary, Champat Rai, while Srivastava was in charge of cash counting operations.
Sections invoked
In view of the court appearance of the accused, elaborate security arrangements were made in and around the court complex and PAC was deployed. Circle officer (City) Shreyash Tripathi also visited the spot to review the security arrangements.On Thursday, an FIR was lodged by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust member Krishna Mohan at the Ram Janmabhoomi police station against the eight accused based on the SIT’s preliminary report which probed the alleged embezzlement. According to the FIR, the accused had allegedly embezzled donations offered by devotees at the Ram Temple and misappropriated trust funds through a criminal conspiracy.The accused were detained on Thursday night after the FIR and formally arrested on Friday morning.UP govt formed the SIT on June 13 on Ram Temple Trust’s request after allegations of donation theft emerged. It was headed by Lucknow divisional commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, with Lucknow range IG Kiran S and finance department special secretary Neelratan Kumar as members.Sources said the SIT examined records relating to donation collection, counting, cash handling, storage and supervision, besides questioning temple employees and officials associated with the process.The panel was tasked with identifying lapses in the handling of donations and determining whether a wider conspiracy existed.The alleged embezzlement came to light earlier this month after claims of financial irregularities were raised in the public domain, prompting the Trust to initiate an internal inquiry before seeking an SIT probe.While the Trust maintained that routine audits did not detect any discrepancies, it requested a SIT probe to establish the facts and dispel speculation surrounding the matter.According to sources, CCTV footage examined during the SIT probe allegedly captured accused Manish Yadav stealing cash on multiple occasions.Despite the alleged thefts, no action was taken at the time as Manish is purportedly a relative of co-accused Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu, who allegedly facilitated his appointment to the temple’s cash-counting unit.
