Based on the report of a special investigation team formed to probe the theft, the police on Thursday night arrested eight people for allegedly donating crores of rupees and gold from the Ram temple in Ayodhya. After this arrest ‘Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra Trust‘Union general secretary Champat Roy and member Anil Mishra resigned. Opposition parties accused the government of shielding the real culprits and demanded a Supreme Court-supervised probe.
Krishna Mohan, one of the members of the trust, lodged a formal complaint with the police station on Thursday following the recommendations of the preliminary report given by the investigation team. The name of the deceased is Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinu, Ramashankar Mishra alias Ravi Mishra, Anukalpa is mixed, Lavish mixed, Avinash Shukla, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava and Karunesh Pandey were arrested. Police sources said that unaccounted funds of Rs 80 lakh have been recovered from the addresses of several accused.
According to media reports, The two recently resigned trustees have direct contact with some of the arrested accused. Ramashankar Yadav, a former driver of outgoing general secretary Champat Roy and associated with Vishva Hindu Parishad’s Karasevakpuram wing, has been accused of possessing the keys to donation boxes and behaving in a philandering manner., But he denied the allegations. On the other hand, Ramashankar Mishra, who was in charge of counting the money, and his son Anukalpa Mishra, who are accused of obstructing CCTV monitoring, are relatives of resigned member Anil Mishra. Ramashankar’s son-in-law Lavkush Mishra was assigned the task of sending the stolen money and gold.
Police also recovered Rs 5 lakh from Avinash Shukla, an influential employee and a key member of the gang. The stolen money was also recovered from the house of Ramshankar Yadav’s nephew Manish Yadav, who was in charge of overseeing the charity box. Among the other two accused, Subhash Srivastava, a former bank employee, is responsible for counting and depositing money in the bank and Karunesh Pandey is accused of irregularities in issuing receipts to devotees.
The entire incident is uproar against the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Shiv Sena (Uddhav) reacted strongly. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Friday alleged that his party has till date not received any receipt for four kg silver bricks and Rs 1 crore donated by party chief Uddhav Thackeray. He also made serious allegations that Rs 2,000 crore stolen from the Ram temple was used to buy Trinamool and Shiv Sena (Uddhav) MPs. Congress has accused the trust of misappropriation of funds, An inquiry was conducted based on the complaint of the same trust‘Real criminals are likely to escape. Hence, the party demanded a Supreme Court-supervised inquiry into the entire incident and also against former Prime Minister’s Office official and Ram Mandir Nirman Committee Chairman Nripendra Mishra and other officials of the trust.