A day after all the accused in the Ram Mandir donation misappropriation case got arrested, Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust chief Champat Rai resigned from the post. Along with Rai, trust member Anil Mishra also stepped down. Reports suggest that the resignations came after the direct involvement of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
The resignations come amid mounting scrutiny at the Ayodhya Ram Temple. Preliminary findings from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) have reportedly flagged serious lapses in the handling and monitoring of donations offered by devotees.
As per the recommendation of the SIT, the first FIR in the case has already been registered.
The complaint was filed by trust member Krishna Mohan, who joined the trust in September last year after the death of former trustee Kameshwar Chaupal.
The FIR mentions eight accused, six of whom are temple employees responsible for counting cash. According to sources, the eight were caught embezzling money on CCTV cameras.
The list of those arrested included Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Ramshankar Mishra, Ramashankar Yadav, Manish Yadav, Subhash Chandra Srivastava and Karunesh Pandey.
The stolen money was recovered from two of the accused, Anukalp Mishra and Lavkush Mishra.
The issue of stealing donations was flagged by the Samajwadi Party. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that crores of rupees of donations were gone missing and demanded a judicial intervention.
The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust initially said that rumours were spread regarding the temple inorder to ""to tarnish the image of the Ram temple and hurt the faith of millions of devotees".
