Ayodhya police have recovered documents from the rented residence of Ramashankar Mishra, one of eight people arrested in the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple, as investigators intensify efforts to reconstruct how offerings were diverted.
Mishra was taken to the house on Wednesday, July 15, during a 14-hour period of police custody granted by a local court. Investigators found the papers inside a bag kept in the room and subsequently sealed the premises. The documents are being examined alongside bank records, digital material, CCTV footage and statements from other accused persons.
Police also questioned Subhash Srivastava, a retired State Bank of India employee who supervised donation counting. The two men were brought from Faizabad District Jail and interrogated from around 9 am about the movement of cash from donation boxes to the counting room and the safeguards designed to prevent theft.
Investigators sought details about who opened donation boxes, transported the cash and recorded staff attendance. They also examined whether workers were frisked before entering or leaving the counting area and how the money was packaged and deposited into designated accounts of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
Mishra is alleged to have been involved in carrying cash collected from donation boxes to the counting room. Police used the questioning to map the sequence through which money may have been removed, concealed and carried out without detection. The accused were confronted with transaction details and other evidence to test inconsistencies in earlier accounts.
All eight people named in the first information report were arrested on June 25 after a preliminary inquiry by a Special Investigation Team. They are Ram Shankar Yadav, also known as Tinnu Yadav, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Manish Yadav, Lavkush Mishra, Ramashankar Mishra and Subhash Srivastava.
They face allegations including theft by an employee, criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The allegations have not been proved in court, and the investigation remains under way.
Police recovered about Rs79.85 lakh from the accused during the initial action. The seizures included cash, foreign currency and valuables. Ramashankar Mishra was linked to the recovery of about Rs7.32 lakh and silver items, while larger sums were recovered from several other accused.
The inquiry has expanded into an examination of nearly 50 bank accounts linked to the accused and their relatives. Investigators have sought transaction records dating to 2022 to determine whether diverted donations were moved through personal or proxy accounts and converted into property, vehicles, jewellery or other assets.
The financial scrutiny is aimed at identifying unexplained deposits, transfers and withdrawals, as well as attempts to conceal the origin of funds. Police have seized vehicles and jewellery during earlier custody periods and are checking whether those purchases correspond with the declared income of the people under investigation.
Investigators suspect procedural failures in the donation-counting system allowed insiders to exploit gaps in supervision. The inquiry is examining whether prescribed controls were followed, including restrictions on clothing with pockets, mandatory searches of workers and continuous monitoring of the counting room.
CCTV material is being reviewed to establish whether cash was concealed during counting and temporarily stored elsewhere before being removed in smaller amounts. Some footage reportedly shows suspicious handling of money, but its evidentiary value will be tested during the investigation and any subsequent trial.
The case has prompted wider questions about governance at one of the country’s most prominent religious institutions. Temple officials have said the inquiry should identify every person responsible and promised cooperation with investigators. The trust has also faced calls to strengthen accounting, independent oversight and security around the processing of offerings.
