Ayodhya, June 27: An official inquiry by a Special Investigation Team has exposed widespread violations of Standard Operating Procedures during the donation-counting process at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The administrative probe found that critical safeguards, designed in partnership with banking experts to manage the heavy volume of devotee offerings, were abandoned. The state government received the initial findings this week, resulting in an immediate criminal registration and the detention of eight key personnel.
The findings highlight a major breakdown in internal oversight, with administrative personnel remaining unaware of the ongoing irregularities until the formal probe. According to investigative reports, an accused supervisor appointed to lead the counting unit allegedly operated without basic security checks. Suspicion intensified earlier this month when an unaccounted sum of Rs 2.5 lakh was discovered abandoned in a facility restroom just prior to the team’s deployment.
The inquiry detailed that multiple safety norms were discarded, such as the failure to deploy contracted security personnel and a total absence of random checks on staff entering the counting zones. Crucially, the management failed to retain the required six months of surveillance footage, deleting records after a fraction of the mandated period. The unauthorized distribution of access keys to individual donation boxes further enabled the systemic evasion of accountability.
Recovery operations have already yielded substantial sums of cash and foreign notes from the possession of six of the accused. The judiciary has placed all eight individuals under custody while specialized teams look into the broader dimensions of the financial mismanagement.
“Though the probe is still underway, you would have noticed the speed with which action followed after the trust, given the enormity of the SIT’s preliminary findings, was forced to register an FIR,” declared an internal source familiar with the developments.
