Ayodhya: The SIT’s voluminous charge sheet in the Ram Temple donation theft case against eight accused cites CCTV recordings as evidence, alleging that accused Avinash Shukla was caught on camera removing money 85 times from the counting room.
Putting the recovered proceeds of crime (PoC) at over Rs 79.85 lakh, the chargesheet flags over 105 instances of cash removal or concealment by the counting staff and gives details of bank accounts in which cash was parked before being used for illegal transactions, said an investigator linked to the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Uttar Pradesh Police.
The charge sheet filed in the court of the Additional District Judge (Anti-corruption), Ayodhya, Wednesday invoked penal provisions related to criminal breach of trust against the eight accused. They also face charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The eight accused are Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Ramashankar Mishra, Manish Yadav, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Lavkush Mishra, and Subhash Srivastava.
The 70,000-page charge sheet has referred to CCTV footage, mobile chats, call detail records (CDRs), banking transactions and recoveries as digital evidence, emphasising that call detail records (CDRs) of the accused indicated that they were all in regular contact with each other during the crime that was committed over months.
Sharing details of how many times each accused was caught on camera stealing money from the counting room, the charge sheet said that in CCTV footage Karunesh Pandey was seen removing donation money twice and assisting others on 68 occasions.
Manish Yadav was seen removing money 16 times and assisting others in the theft on 19 occasions; Lavkush Mishra was seen removing money once and assisting 52 times; Anukalp Mishra was seen on CCTV assisting co-accused 56 times; and Ramshankar Mishra was seen removing the donation money once, the charge sheet said.
The charge sheet also said ornaments were recovered from the accused, adding that the embezzled money was used to buy vehicles, land and houses.
It said Anukalp Mishra’s father used stolen donation money to buy a house, adding that Luvkush Mishra spent Rs 43.43 lakh on a house and land.
The SIT’s charge sheet also referred to a forensic audit conducted to examine how donations were handled, deposited in banks, and used for illegal transactions. The auditors also checked the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust’s audited statements.
Trust general secretary Champat Rai, former Trust administrator Gopal Rao, former trustee of the temple body Anil Mishra, and interim General Secretary of the Trust Krishna Mohan have been named as witnesses in the charge sheet, officials said.
The SIT was headed by Lucknow Range Inspector General Kiran S, with Faizabad Range DIG Somen Barma and Ayodhya SSP Gaurav Grover as members.
The case was registered in June, after its preliminary inquiry flagged suspected diversion of donations.
