Several bank officials under lens over Ram Temple donation theft, action likely after ‘revelations’

New Delhi: As the First Information Report (FIR) in the Ram Temple donation controversy named eight persons, including a temple attendant, former bank staff and those engaged in cash counting, for alleged misappropriation of cash and offerings, several banking officials are likely to face the heat over ‘collusion’ in the alleged theft.

All eight arrested accused, namely Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu, are currently being grilled and will be produced in court.

During the interrogation, Tinnu and Subhash are learnt to have made startling revelations about the modus operandi as well as the involvement of more people. They have also purportedly named several government bank officials who acted either as conduits or channels for misappropriation of temple offerings.

Notably, it was the State Bank of India (SBI) that was authorised to count cash, offerings and valuables at the temple.

According to people privy to the probe, not just one but several banking officials are found to be involved in the embezzlement racket and are currently being scanned for their questionable conduct.

Sources suggest that soon they could also face penal action for their alleged role in facilitating multi-crore siphoning of temple donations.

Investigation findings indicate that Tinnu Yadav and Subhash Srivastava played central roles in the planning and execution of the temple theft. Subhash allegedly recruited others into the operation and managed duty allocation to staff for counting cash offerings at the temple.

Tinnu, former driver of Temple Trust’s general secretary Champat Rai, emerged as the biggest figure in the theft controversy, while Subhash is the ex-banking staff member among eight arrested. It was Subhash who monitored the cash-counting staff at the temple and allegedly acted as a key pivot in embezzling the donations.

According to top sources, the alleged involvement of banking officials is seen as an ‘organised crime ’, and soon there may be another SIT investigation to unravel the shady operations of the entire syndicate.

About the modus operandi, the sources indicated that the bundles of cash were first stored in the bathroom to evade public eye and later moved out of the temple premises during the night. The stolen money was then segregated at separate locations and diverted to scamsters’ accounts. The racket is believed to have been operating for 2–3 years.

IANS