Lucknow: A police case is yet to be filed against those who had allegedly been siphoning money and valuables from the Ram temple vault in Ayodhya for over a year, leaving unanswered a glaring question on how the accused would be brought to book.

The Yogi Adityanath government has set up a special investigation team to probe the theft, but there is no clarity on how the thieves would be punished in the absence of an FIR.

However, sources claimed the police had detained at least five people from the temple management committee after raiding multiple places.

Vikram Tiwari, a 45-year-old resident of Ayodhya, submitted an application to the police on Sunday.

“I spent all my life in the service of Ram and even worked for the construction of the temple. I am in deep pain to see the theft of daily offerings and donations to the temple. I moved an application with the police, but they took it casually and told me that an inquiry was already in progress. How can an inquiry be done without a police case?” Tiwari told reporters.

“Such thefts were unheard of.... We kept dreaming all our
lives that India would enter a golden age with the establishment of the Ram temple, but we didn’t realise that there were thieves all over,” he added.

Tiwari said the government must deploy a team capable of tracking the movement of stolen money.

“We know they bought properties and travelled to certain places. The investigators can easily expose the money trail,” he added.

A police source said they raided a house in Milkipur on Saturday night and recovered lakhs in cash.

“This was the second raid on Saturday. Earlier, we
had conducted a raid at a house in Minapur Thakuran Fagauli and recovered
₹12 lakh. A total of ₹2.98 crore out of about ₹7 crore of the stolen money has been recovered,” a police officer in Lucknow said on the condition of anonymity.

“Two teams of six people each were tasked with collecting and counting the offerings and depositing them in banks. Those who were asked to install CCTV in the vault and on its door had installed some non-functional cameras. This indicates the involvement of senior members of the temple management committee,” the officer said.

The SIT, headed by Lucknow divisional commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, is expected to submit a detailed report within 15 days.

Arvind Jain, a retired director-general of police, said the government could file an FIR against the accused on the basis of the SIT report.