The investigation into the alleged theft of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya has reached a key stage with the chargesheet likely to be filed by the month-end, said a police official who is part of the probe team.
The charge sheet will include statements of the accused, CCTV footage of the crime spot and temple premises, recovered cash, vehicles, jewellery and important documents as evidence, the official added.
Police claim to have gathered sufficient evidence to substantiate charges against all eight arrested accused, the official privy to the probe said. The focus is now on cross-verifying all evidence.
Before filing the charge sheet, the legal strength of the evidence included in the case diary and the role of the accused is being assessed.
Initial investigation, after scanning CCTV footage of the temple premises, revealed activities of hiding or siphoning off offerings more than 70 times between April 27 and June 5.
Police have mapped these movements with duty charts, cash handling registers and statements of staff.
Police sources said the case diary includes detailed inventory of seized articles, forensic examination of digital evidence including DVR recordings, UPI logs and bank transactions, and statements of temple staff and trust officials.
{{/usCountry}}Police sources said the case diary includes detailed inventory of seized articles, forensic examination of digital evidence including DVR recordings, UPI logs and bank transactions, and statements of temple staff and trust officials.
{{/usCountry}}The donation theft controversy first surfaced on June 7 when Samajwadi Party leader Tej Narayan ‘Pawan’ Pandey alleged that donations worth ₹5 crore to ₹7.5 crore were siphoned off from temple offerings. On June 13, the state government set up the first SIT comprising Lucknow divisional commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, inspector general of police (Lucknow range) Kiran S and special secretary (finance) Neel Ratan.
The first SIT submitted its preliminary report to the state home department on June 23.
On June 25, a first information report was registered against eight named accused and other unidentified people under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 306, 316(5), 317(4), 317(5), 61 and 3(5), relating to offences such as criminal breach of trust, cheating, theft and criminal conspiracy, along with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
All eight accused named in the FIR -- Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra and Karunesh Pandey -- were arrested on June 26.
The statutory 90-day window for filing the charge sheet is set to expire on September 25.
A second SIT was constituted in July following the Supreme Court’s direction for an IPS-led investigation. The second SIT is headed by inspector general of police (Lucknow range) Kiran S and includes deputy inspector general (Ayodhya range) Somen Barma, Ayodhya senior superintendent of police Gaurav Grover and additional superintendent of police (Barabanki) Ritesh Kumar Singh. On August 17, the first SIT’s final report flagged “gross lapses” in the functioning of the trust and the lack of professional financial management in the Trust. However, it found no evidence of financial impropriety at the leadership level. The report exonerated former Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra, stating that there was no evidence of their direct involvement in the alleged misappropriation of donation money.