LUCKNOW: The ongoing investigation into the high-profile embezzlement of Ram temple donation funds in Ayodhya has significantly expanded, with investigators shifting their focus onto a calculated money-laundering trail. Financial probes have revealed that a substantial portion of the stolen cash offerings was aggressively invested in the domestic stock market and other secondary financial instruments by the accused, aimed not only at concealing the paper trail but also at generating massive personal trading profits.
The Ayodhya police have conducted fresh, targeted searches at the residential premises of the prime suspects and have frozen multiple bank accounts tied to the wider network. Sources close to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) stated that investigators escorted accused Anukalp Mishra to his residence on Thursday, where they conducted a thorough search of the property and interrogated his immediate family members.
During intense custodial interrogation, Anukalp allegedly confessed to the police that he, along with co-accused Avinash Shukla—the suspected mastermind of the inner-room theft racket—systematically routed the stolen temple offerings into various equity shares in the stock market. Furthermore, they ran an illegal local lending operation, distributing the cash at high interest rates, and temporarily parked the funds across multiple bank accounts belonging to relatives and close acquaintances before routing the money back into their own personal accounts to legitimize it.
Earlier on Wednesday, a separate police team escorted co-accused Lavkush Mishra and Karunesh Pandey to their respective residences for comprehensive spot-evidence collection. All three prominent accused were placed on a rigorous 40-hour police custody remand following explicit judicial approval. “The search and interrogation exercise was carried out in the direct presence of senior forensic experts and independent witnesses. Officers thoroughly questioned family members, scanned physical transaction documents, and seized various electronic devices, digital investment logs, and financial diaries that could firmly map the money trail,” an official police source confirmed.
“The financial investigators have frozen 30 operational bank accounts belonging directly to the accused and their immediate family members after unearthing banking transactions completely disproportionate to their legally declared sources of income,” an official source stated. The source further added that police recovered a massive batch of forged temple donation receipts from the personal custody of the accused during the raids. Specialized financial investigators are currently scrutinizing these accounts, matching localized banking transactions with historical stock market investments, sudden property acquisitions, and recent cash recoveries. Authorities strongly suspect that these 30 accounts were utilized as safe-houses to receive, transfer, or temporarily hold the stolen cash before it was injected into brokerage apps or withdrawn for luxury personal expenditures.
According to situational details provided by the investigators, the accused systematically exploited severe supervision loopholes in the temple’s daily donation management and counting rooms. Currency bundles and loose cash were removed in relatively small, calculated quantities during the routine manual counting sessions to escape the immediate detection of the management trust. Rather than instantly spending the siphoned wealth on easily traceable high-value assets, investigators believe the accused adopted a highly guarded, professional approach by placing the cash into volatile financial markets to harvest compounding capital returns.
Insiders claim that the legal probe is now expanding significantly beyond the physical recovery of stolen hard cash. The central objective of the SIT is to construct a bulletproof financial money trail to map out exactly where every single rupee went, how it was filtered into trading accounts, and who ultimately stood as the end-beneficiaries of the siphoned religious offerings. External financial auditors and capital market experts have been officially brought into the case to compute the total aggregate volume of money diverted into trading. Brokerage accounts, stock trading statements, mobile investment applications, and unified payment interface (UPI) records are being audited.
“Investigators are also trying to conclusively establish whether the dividends and profits generated through these illegal market investments were subsequently withdrawn, reinvested into mutual funds, or deployed to acquire benami physical assets in the region,” an executive source added. The deeper financial audit has additionally revealed that several of the lower-tier temple employees arrested in the racket had rapidly accumulated properties and personal assets completely inconsistent with their monthly salary structures.
ലഘു വിവരണം
അയോധ്യ രാമക്ഷേത്രത്തിലെ കാണിക്കപ്പണം തട്ടിയെടുത്ത കേസിൽ വൻ വഴിത്തിരിവ്. മോഷ്ടിച്ച പണം ഒളിപ്പിക്കാനും അതിൽ നിന്ന് ലാഭമുണ്ടാക്കാനുമായി പ്രതികൾ ഈ തുക ഓഹരി വിപണിയിൽ നിക്ഷേപിച്ചതായി പൊലീസ് കണ്ടെത്തി. കേസിൽ ഉൾപ്പെട്ട അടിയന്തര പ്രതികളുടെയും അവരുടെ ബന്ധുക്കളുടെയും 30 ബാങ്ക് അക്കൗണ്ടുകൾ പൊലീസ് മരവിപ്പിച്ചു. കാണിക്ക എണ്ണുന്നതിനിടയിൽ ചെറിയ തുകകളായി പണം മോഷ്ടിക്കുകയും, വ്യാജ രസീതുകൾ ഉണ്ടാക്കുകയും ചെയ്ത പ്രതികൾ ഈ പണം ഉയർന്ന പലിശയ്ക്ക് കടം കൊടുക്കാനും ഉപയോഗിച്ചിരുന്നു. കേസിൽ സാമ്പത്തിക വിദഗ്ധരുടെ സഹായത്തോടെ വിശദമായ അന്വേഷണം നടക്കുകയാണ്.
(With inputs from TNIE)
For more details: Navamalayalam.com