A Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) final report into allegations of irregularities in the Ram Temple collections flagged “gross lapses” in the functioning of the trust that managed the shrine but exonerated two top former functionaries of the body, officials aware of the matter said on Tuesday.
To be sure, HT has reported that six of the eight arrested men were on the payroll of a Varanasi-based security agency that provided manpower to SBI, allegedly at the recommendation of trust members. Instead, the SIT named Ram Shankar Yadav or Tinnu Yadav – a former aide and driver of Rai – as the mastermind behind the alleged diversion of funds. Yadav is one of eight men arrested by the police in connection with the allegations. The state government SIT comprised Lucknow divisional commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, inspector general of police (Lucknow range) Kiran S and special secretary (Finance) Neel Ratan. The second SIT, set up by the apex court, is headed by Kiran S and also comprises DIG (Ayodhya) Somen Barma, and SSP (Ayodhya) Gaurav Grover.
The eight men – Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra, and Karunesh Pandey – were arrested and booked 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. Last month, the police also seized ₹ 79,85,493 from the eight arrested men, recovering money from bathrooms, haystacks and cow dung cakes.
The report of the three-member SIT –– first constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government on June 13 and which filed its interim report on July 20 –– was submitted to the state government and the trust on Monday evening. To be sure, a second SIT –– set up by the Supreme Court on July 20 –– is still probing the case.
