Allegations about the theft of donations and daily offerings to the Ayodhya Ram temple, one of the Narendra Modi government’s showpiece achievements, appeared to gain traction on Monday with a police seizure of cash from a shrine employee’s home.
While the police were yet to make an official statement, perhaps because of the sensitivity of the matter, sources said ₹12 lakh was recovered from temple staffer Luvkush’s home.
“The police broke the lock of a room and took away cash,” Luvkush’s father Bacchu Lal Mishra told reporters at his home in Minapur Thakuran Fagauli village, Ayodhya district.
“I live in Ghaziabad and arrived here only a few days ago. The police had already detained my son. I don’t think my son kept the money here; someone did it to
implicate him and save themselves.”
Several sadhus and Ayodhya residents had last week alleged the theft of crores of rupees and gold from the temple, either offered by daily visitors or donated by other devotees, including the rich and powerful. Several Opposition politicians too had picked up the issue.
But Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai had denied any theft.
Sources suggested the ₹12 lakh seized was part of a sum of ₹7 crore stolen by some of the temple employees assigned to collect and count the donations and offerings and deposit them with the temple trust’s SBI account.
Villagers said Luvkush, 27, was a motor mechanic before being recruited by the temple last year. They said he had repaired his home and bought a plot of land soon after.
“He used to charge temple visitors several thousand rupees for easy entry. He would take them directly to the sanctum sanctorum and allow them to stay there for 15 to 30 minutes,” a villager who didn’t want to be named said.
A police source said: “At least three people are involved in the crime. Members of the temple trust were present during the raid on Luvkush’s home.”
The state government washed its hands of the matter.
“This is an internal matter of the trust and they are capable of handling it. The state government doesn’t see a role for itself,” state agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi said.
But the central government seemed more concerned. Building the Ram temple had for decades been a core ideological issue with the BJP, and Modi had presided over its bhoomi pujan in 2020 and consecration in 2024.
Nripendra Mishra, a retired bureaucrat known for his long proximity to Modi, arrived in Ayodhya on Saturday and met trust members minutes after they had returned from the raid.
Asked about the outcome of the meeting, he merely said: “My job is to supervise the construction of the temple.”
However, construction of the temple is virtually over. The grapevine has it that the PMO sent Mishra to take stock of the situation.
After the theft allegations last week, the trust had quickly begun an audit of the collections although Rai described it as a “routine exercise”.
However, Mohit Ashok, a lawyer, filed a public interest plea before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Friday seeking an FIR and a CAG audit of the temple funds.
Earlier, local BJP leader Rajnish Singh had written to the PMO saying the ordinary devotees had the right to know what the temple had done with their money.
On a request from the trust, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday formed a three-member special investigation team of senior police and administrative
officials to probe the theft allegations.
A source in the temple management committee told The Telegraph that corruption had existed “from the beginning” when the trust was formed in 2020.
However, the latest thefts became public when a senior RSS member tried to take over the trust, currently under the VHP’s control, he said.
“The RSS leader found that three employees were stealing money. One of the three is associated with a trust member from Ayodhya,” he said.
“We don’t know whether the trust member was aware of his associate’s activities, but it gave the RSS leader a chance to pin the trust down.”