Ram Mandir Donations Row: Ayodhya Court Allows One-Day Police Custody of Three Accused

An Ayodhya court on Tuesday granted the Uttar Pradesh Police one-day custody of three accused arrested in the embezzlement case of donation funds, including cash, gold and silver offerings, at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir.

The police had sought seven-day custody of Lavkush Mishra, Anukalp Mishra and Karunesh Pandey for further interrogation.

The three accused are among the eight persons arrested in the case registered on June 25 over the alleged misappropriation of donations made by devotees at the temple.

The FIR in the case was registered on the basis of a written complaint lodged by Krishna Mohan, a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust. Following the resignation of former general secretary Champat Rai, Krishna Mohan has since been appointed the Trust's interim general secretary.

On June 29, an Ayodhya court remanded all eight accused to 14 days' judicial custody.

Subsequently, the Uttar Pradesh Police sought custody of Lavkush Mishra, Anukalp Mishra and Karunesh Pandey, arguing that their custodial interrogation was required in light of fresh material that emerged during the questioning of the remaining five accused inside the jail on July 5. The police submitted that the interrogation had yielded new leads, making it necessary to confront the three accused with the additional evidence. The court has now granted the police one-day custody of the three accused for further interrogation.

The eight accused in the case are Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Rama Shankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Rama Shankar alias Tinnu.

According to the police, recoveries worth over Rs 79 lakh have been made from all the accused except Subhash Srivastava, who is nevertheless alleged to have been part of the conspiracy. Investigators are examining whether the alleged theft of donations was confined to temple staff or formed part of a wider conspiracy involving others.

According to reports, the three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government has, in its preliminary findings, pointed to serious security lapses in the temple's donation management system. The SIT is said to have identified nearly 70 instances of alleged theft over a span of 40 days, attributing them to inadequate frisking of staff, poor CCTV surveillance and weak supervisory mechanisms that allegedly allowed cash to be removed repeatedly from donation boxes without being detected. It is also examining the role of officials responsible for supervising the donation counting process.

The investigation has since expanded beyond the original FIR. The SIT has been given an additional 15 days to continue its probe and has directed a re-audit of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust's accounts for the past five years.

Investigators are also scrutinising expenditure incurred by the Trust on major events over the last two years. In addition, they are considering conducting narco-analysis and polygraph tests on some of the accused to determine whether others were involved in the alleged embezzlement. Following the allegations, the Trust also announced structural reforms to strengthen oversight of the donation management system.

[Inputs: ANI]