In the ongoing probe into the Ram Mandir donation embezzlement case, eight persons named in the FIR were arrested by the police on Friday morning (26th June). The arrestees have been identified as Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu. The accused have been remanded to judicial custody till Monday and will be produced before the Special Court under the Prevention of Corruption Act on that day, as the court was not sitting today.
All of them were involved in the process of counting, sorting and bundling cash and valuables received as donations at the temple. A total of ₹79,85,493 has been recovered from them, except from Subhash Srivastava, as confirmed by the police and prosecution officials. The arrests come a day after an FIR was registered under Sections 306, 316(5), 317(4), 317(5), 61, and 3(5) of BNS following directions from the Uttar Pradesh government.
The FIR was lodged based on a complaint filed by a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust and the preliminary findings of a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Yogi government earlier this month.
#NewsFlash | Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Tinnu Yadav, and four others have been named in the FIR in the alleged Ayodhya Ram Mandir donations embezzlement case.#AyodhyaRamMandir #RamMandir https://t.co/mPMTxrUR5r pic.twitter.com/YMOCZOUEOV
— DD News (@DDNewslive) June 26, 2026
Meanwhile, Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts earlier today on moral grounds. However, neither of them has been named in the FIR. Rai initially denied the allegations of theft of donation funds but later welcomed the SIT probe, which led to the arrests.
Let’s take a look at the details of the eight persons arrested in connection with the case:
Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav– He used to work as the driver of the Trust’s general secretary, Champat Rai. He was also associated with VHP’s Karsevakpuram, who used to count donations. He is a prominent face among all the accused arrested in the case. As per reports, Yadav kept the keys of the donation boxes with him. Yadav reportedly gained influence within the temple’s internal management system because of his proximity to the members of the Trust. According to investigators, Yadav exercised significant control over the security, counting and transportation of donations collected at the temple.
Tinnu Yadav was an autorickshaw driver in Ayodhya who later joined the VHP and became the personal driver of Champat Rai. As per claims, he has amassed properties worth over ₹50 crore by embezzling cash, gold, silver, and diamond offerings of devotees. However, Yadav claims that he had no role in handling the donations, and he purchased the land propetry worth ₹50 crore in 2008 from income generated by driving auto-rickshaws.
Manish Yadav– He is the nephew of Tinnu Yadav and was also involved in the donation counting process. The stolen money was recovered from his house as well.
Ramashankar Mishra, alias Ravi Mishra– He was involved in the donation counting process. He is accused of siphoning off the donation money in coordination with other employees. He was seen taking part in the cash- sorting process on a CCTV camera. Investigators have claimed that Mishra bypassed established financial protocols over an extended period to facilitate the alleged theft. He got his son, Anukalp Mishra, and son-in-law, Lavkush Mishra, involved in the work of handling donation money at the temple.
Anukalp Mishra– He is the son of Ramashankar Mishra and was involved in the work of counting donations. Anukalp Mishra is also a relative of Trustee Anil Mishra and brother-in-law of co-accused Lavkush Mishra. He is a resident of Basawan village in Ayodhya’s Milkipur area. Police recovered stolen money from his residence.
Lavkush Mishra– He is the son-in-law of Ramashankar Mishra and was also involved in the process of counting donation money. The allegation against him is that he and Anukalp Mishra were actively involved in siphoning off funds. His actions were captured on CCTV footage, and around ₹12 lakh was also recovered from his house.
Avinash Shukla– He worked as an attendant of the temple and was part of a team responsible for handling and counting cash and valuables received as offerings. An amount of ₹5 lakh was recovered from his bank account.
Subhash Shrivastava– He is a former bank employee who was in charge of the cash-counting staff. He was entrusted with supervising the entire donation counting process due to his banking background.
Karunesh Pandey– He was part of a team that handled the donations. He is accused of manipulating financial records related to incoming donations.
Among the 8 accused, two are linked to Champat Rai, who resigned as the General Secretary of the trust. They are Rai’s driver Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, and his nephew Manish Yadav. On the other hand, three accused are linked to trust member Anil Mishra, who also resigned today. They are Ramashankar Mishra, his son Anukalp Mishra and son-in-law Lavkush Mishra. This means 5 out of 8 accused are linked to the two members of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
As per reports, the theft was discovered after the Mandir committee installed hidden cameras in the area used to count and arrange cash after discrepancies were found between cash received at donation boxes and cash deposited at the bank. The hidden camera footage showed that the accused were standing in front of the regular CCTV cameras while pocketing some of the cash while handling the money. Sometimes they also inserted extra notes in bundles, and took out the extra notes on the way to the bank.
Apart from cash, some jewellery donated by devotees was also stolen by the accused staff members. However, claims that they also stole 200 kg of silver donated to the Mandir were found to be baseless. The tota
