The State Bank of India’s (SBI) main branch at Naya Ghat in Ayodhya has become the focal point of an investigation into alleged irregularities in fundraising at a Ram temple, with police spending four hours on Monday collecting evidence from bank officials.
A police officer investigating the case said the branch held the accounts of seven of the eight men arrested in connection with the allegations, in addition to the main account of the temple fund. The account of the eight accused is in the Faizabad branch of the SBI.
“Ayodhya Police today visited the bank to obtain account details of all eight accused in the donation money scam. The bank has provided their account details,” branch manager Anup Tripathi said.
A bank official, who requested anonymity, said the bank first raised concerns about possible irregularities in the temple’s funds three months ago, but added that the warning went unheeded. The bank informed the fund as well as the Ayodhya police at that time, the official said.
The bank official quoted above said: “The fund officials allegedly intervened and protected the employees. Despite the bank’s warning, the fund took no action and the same employees continued to handle the counting work.”
HT contacted the Ayodhya police but they refused to comment on the matter.
Two senior trust officials, Champat Rai and Anil Mishra, have already resigned. They have contacts with some of the eight detained men.
The Fund has assigned responsibility for counting donated funds to the SBI, but a bank official said that some Fund officials had put pressure on the bank to include some people in the counting team. “They were strong, we could not refuse… They are now under the microscope to put pressure on the SBI to include certain people in the money counting business,” said a senior bank official requesting anonymity.
A fund official who did not wish to reveal his name said that the cash counting exercise involved at least nine members of the SBI, some employees of a Varanasi-based agency and some members of the fund.
Investigators also pointed to potential problems within the money-counting team. The bank official said that counting staff were never asked to wear clothes without pockets and no government officials were ever included to supervise the counting work.
“It is also being investigated at what level of trust the bank’s recommendation was canceled three months ago, who are the officials involved, and who allowed the cultivation of trust staff in the agency’s outsourcing team,” said a member of the fund who did not wish to be named.
The police team also visited Canara Bank, which is located opposite SBI Bank. The fund has accounts in Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank as well.
“The team visited the bank. But they did not find the bank accounts they were looking for,” said Akansha Tiwari, branch manager of Canara Bank in Ayodhya.
Besides the bank details of the accused, the Ayodhya police are also looking into the bank details of their family members.
The Ayodhya police on June 26 arrested eight money counting employees, including Anukalp Mishra, Lakush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tino’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Ram Shankar Mishra and Karunesh Pandey.
Manish Yadav is associated with Ram Shankar Yadav, who is one of Rai’s aides. Anukalp Mishra and Lavkush Mishra are related to each other and are colleagues of Anil Mishra.
The police have already recovered $79.85 lakh in cash from seven of the eight accused during the searches that followed their arrest.
Earlier, in a statement issued on Sunday, the SBI said it is fully cooperating with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the alleged irregularities in the handling of donations collected through donation boxes at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
In the statement, SBI said it has been providing banking services to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust since the Pran Pratishtha ceremony in 2024. The bank said it has extended full cooperation to SIT during the investigation and remains committed to assisting the ongoing investigation.
