Amid massive public outrage and intense criticism from the Opposition over the alleged donation theft in the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter.
The development comes days after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav shared a news report alleging that donations received by the Ram Temple in Ayodhya were stolen.
In a post on social media platform X, Yadav said: “This is an extremely sensitive piece of news for devotees of Lord Ram across the entire world: crores of rupees in offerings to the ‘Ram Mandir’ have been found missing.”
Calling the incident “utterly shameful”, the former UP CM demanded the court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
“There is a demand for the court to take suo motu cognizance, as this is directly linked to the deep faith in Lord Ram held by the entire Sanatan society at a global level,” he added.
After Yadav’s allegations, the issue quickly snowballed into a major scandal, prompting UP CM Yogi Adityanath to order an SIT probe.
According to officials, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the day-to-day affairs of the temple, had also demanded the SIT probe.
Prakash Gupta, the in-charge of the temple trust camp office, did not rule out the “miscalculation” of donations, but sought to give a clean chit to temple authorities.
“The money offered in temples was kept in donation boxes and was counted within the temple premises itself. Bank employees used to come for this counting process, and one representative from the trust would also be present to supervise it,” he said.
“Since the bank employees were involved, the irregularities could not be caught, and they kept on doing this. The supervisors were not aware that irregularities of this scale could be carried out,” he added.
The alleged theft, Gupta suggested, might have taken place during the counting of money.
“This miscalculation might have taken place in the counting of money offered in the temple’s donation boxes,” he added.