EIGHT persons named in an FIR over the alleged embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple in Ayodhya have been arrested, and remanded to judicial custody till June 29, senior officials said on Friday. The FIR, lodged at the instance of Krishna Mohan, a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, follows recommendations made in the preliminary report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Uttar Pradesh Government to probe the allegations. “All eight persons named in the FIR have been arrested and are being questioned as part of the investigation,” the officials said on condition of anonymity. Those named in the FIR -- Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu -- were associated with the process of counting cash and valuables received as donations at the temple, an official said.

 

“All the accused were in Ayodhya itself and were picked up for questioning late Thursday night. Further questioning is underway,” a senior official told PTI here. A court has granted judicial custody of all eight accused till June 29, during which investigators will continue questioning them, an official said on Friday. He said the accused would be produced before the court again on Monday, when the police are expected to seek their custodial remand. He clarified that the police have not yet sought remand of the accused. Prosecution Officer K C Verma told reporters that investigators have so far recovered Rs 79.85 lakh during the probe. The prosecution officer said five to six of the arrested persons were bank employees who were deployed for counting cash. He said appropriate provisions relating to criminal breach of trust by public servants and the Prevention of Corruption Act had been invoked as the accused were public servants and were allegedly involved in embezzlement. The prosecution officer said five to six of the arrested persons were bank employees who were deployed for counting cash donations received at the temple and were drawing salaries from the bank. He, however, declined to identify the individual bank employees at this stage of the investigation. He said Tinnu Yadav was not a bank employee but worked as a driver, while Subhash Srivastava was in charge of the donation counting process.

 

The case has been registered under sections 306 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master), 316 (criminal breach of trust), 317 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, among other provisions. The controversy over the alleged embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple surfaced on June 7. The Uttar Pradesh Government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on June 13 at the request of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which submitted its preliminary report to the government on June 23. An FIR was registered on the night of June 25 based on the SIT’s recommendations, and Ayodhya police confirmed the arrests of the accused on Friday. The names of some of the accused had been circulating on social media ever since Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav raised the issue on June 7, after which it snowballed into a major political controversy, with the VHP and the Aam Aadmi Party also demanding registration of a criminal case. Subhash Chandra Srivastava was reportedly in charge of the cash-counting staff, while the other accused were involved in counting cash, valuables or were associated with the process in different capacities. Among those named in the FIR is Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, who is said to be a former driver of the Trust’s general secretary Champat Rai. Tinnu denied any role in cash counting and blamed unnamed “jealous people” for the allegations.