In a significant development in the alleged embezzlement of donations at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, all eight accused persons named in the FIR have been arrested today. A total of ₹79,85,493 has been recovered from them, police and prosecution officials confirmed.
KC Verma, Prosecution Officer for the Ayodhya CJM Court, stated that eight individuals were arrested in connection with the case. Different amounts were recovered from most of them, while nothing was recovered from one accused, Subhash Srivastava, though he was allegedly involved in the conspiracy. 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.
#WATCH | Ayodhya, UP: KC Verma, Prosecution Officer for Ayodhya, CJM Court, says, "Eight individuals have been arrested. A total of ₹79,85,493 was recovered from them in various amounts, and they have been remanded until Monday. They are scheduled to appear before the Special… pic.twitter.com/ODemyCUpfp
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The arrested persons are: Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Manish Yadav, Lavkush Mishra, Ramashankar Mishra, and Subhash Srivastava. Most of them were involved in counting, handling, and transporting cash and valuables donated by devotees at the temple. Some of them are allegedly linked to Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai and member Anil Mishra, both of whom resigned today on moral grounds.
The accused were presented in a court in Ayodhya, after which they were sent to Ayodhya District Jail, as they have been remanded to judicial custody until Monday, June 29.
The FIR was registered on June 25 on the basis of 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 Uttar Pradesh government earlier this month. The accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for offences including theft, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, and related charges. The SIT had flagged several procedural lapses in the handling of donations.
Allegations in the case pertain to the misappropriation of cash offerings and valuables donated by devotees. As per reports, the temple administration had noticed a difference between the amount donated by devotees and the amount deposited in the banks. After finding nothing in CCTV footage, they decided to install hidden cameras in the area where the cash is counted, sorted and bundled for depositing in the bank. These hidden cameras exposed the theft, as the video captured the cash handling staff stealing cash. They allegedly blocked the CCTV cameras while doing the same, and that’s why the theft was not seen in the regular CCTV footage.
In a related development today, Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on moral grounds. The resignations were submitted to ensure a free and fair investigation into the matter. Neither has been named as an accused in the FIR.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has maintained that the government will adopt a zero-tolerance approach and that the guilty will not be spared.
