The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Wednesday filed its charge sheet against eight people in the Ram temple donation theft case before a local court in Ayodhya, detailing findings from an extensive investigation into the pilferage of cash, donations, and the accused’s financial dealings, people familiar with the matter said.
The SIT set up following the Supreme Court’s orders is headed by Lucknow range inspector general of police Kiran S. There is no evidence that the valuables were stolen during their transportation to the bank. Anukalp Mishra and Lavkush Mishra are related to each other, and also to a former trust member, Anil Mishra, who was removed along with trust general secretary Champat Rai. Ram Shankar Yadav, who was an aide of Champat Rai, and Manish Yadav are related.
The charge sheet, which along with the annexures and other documents, runs into 60,000 pages, has been described by investigators as one of the most voluminous filed by the state police, and traces the handling of cash collected at the Ram temple, its subsequent movement to banks and the accounting and verification of valuable donations. It has found evidence of 105 instances of unauthorised removal or concealment of cash during the counting process inside the temple premises, a senior police officer familiar with the investigation said. The eight suspects arrested in the case on June 26 were Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra, and Karunesh Pandey. The police also seized ₹ 79,85,493 from the eight arrested men, recovering money from bathrooms, haystacks and cow dung cakes.
A police officer said the SIT’s probe had moved on three fronts.
The prosecution documents include papers on the accused’s bank transactions, properties, assets, and other financial dealings, apart from the findings of a separate forensic audit ordered as part of the Supreme Court-mandated probe. Three-track investigation
