Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has said that a special investigation team was probing the theft allegations at the Ayodhya Ram temple and urged all political parties to refrain from making “baseless comments that could hurt the feelings of devotees”.
The AAP’s Sanjay Singh was the first to allege that crores of rupees from donations offered at the temple were missing. Thereafter, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav took up the matter and urged the courts to take cognisance. On June 13, the Uttar Pradesh government constituted an SIT following a request from the temple trust to probe the allegations of misappropriation of donation money.
“We have formed an SIT on the request of the trust (Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra). The SIT probe will make everything clear. But I appeal to everybody, to every side, not to make any remark or statement which hurts the sentiments of the followers of Ram. If anybody has documentary evidence, make it available to the SIT,” he said on Friday.
Adityanath was addressing a public meeting in Ayodhya.
“The Congress, which used to deny the existence of Lord Ram, is now saying that it (the theft) was an insult of the God…. The Samajwadi Party, which had opened fire on devotees of Ram and wielded lathis on those who chanted Jai Sri Ram, are preaching to us today,” the BJP leader added.
The Mulayam Singh Yadav government had ordered the police to prevent Hindutva supporters from entering Ayodhya in 1990 when they had reached the temple town to start the construction of the temple at a time the matter was sub judice.
Adityanath said: “The facts (on the allegations of donation theft) will be before us once the inquiry is completed. The intention of the government is to conduct an impartial probe and bring out the truth.”
Sources said that the police had already detained three persons and recovered over ₹2 crore from them. Among those questioned by the SIT is Gopal Rao, an RSS leader who had been assigned to supervise the management of the temple. Rao said it was he who had asked for a probe into the theft allegations.