Ayodhya Ram Temple Donation Case: Six Of Eight Arrested Men Employed By Varanasi Security Firm

Six of the eight men arrested over alleged irregularities in Ram Temple donation collections were on the payroll of Varanasi-based Sainik Security Services.

The State Bank of India (SBI) Naya Ghat branch in Ayodhya hired the firm for cash counting at the shrine, and it was one of the three bank branches where the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirath Kshetra Trust held an account. Police have recovered Rs 79.85 lakh in cash from seven of the eight accused during searches.

"Temple is not our client. The SBI is. We are the second vendor," Gaurav Singh, owner and director of Sainik Security Services, Varanasi, said.

Irregular Hiring Process Exposed

The local SBI branch did not follow the usual centralised hiring route and asked the security firm to supply 19 named employees.

"In this case, the branch asked us to induct 19 of its previously deployed persons into our fold and provide them to the branch," Singh said.

A senior SBI official in Lucknow who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "Usually, hirings such as these are done at the corporate or centralised level."

"They were powerful, we could not refuse...They are now under the scanner for pressuring SBI to include certain people for the cash-counting work," the official said.

The agency operates across 15 states and counts several government companies among its clients, its website states.

Sainik Security Services was incorporated in its present form in December 2017 with a Varanasi registered address and a paid-up capital of Rs 1 lakh. Gaurav Singh said his father founded the firm in 2000 as a proprietorship. It later became a partnership and then a private limited company in 2017 when Singh became director. Each of the 19 caretakers provided to the bank was paid around Rs 20,000 a month.

Accused Linked To Trust

The eight arrested men are Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra and Karunesh Pandey.

Documents submitted by Ayodhya police to the court of Rajat Varma, additional district judge for anti-corruption, show that six of the eight accused were being paid by the Varanasi-based agency, people aware of the matter said.

Ram Shankar Yadav was paid by the trust and Srivastava, a former bank employee, did not draw wages, an unnamed person in the trust said.

Anukalp Mishra and Lavkush Mishra are related to each other and to trust member Anil Mishra, who resigned last week along with trust general secretary Champat Rai. Ram Shankar Yadav, an aide of Rai, and Manish Yadav are related.

Timeline Of The Investigation

The controversy first surfaced on June 7 when Samajwadi Party leader Tej Narayan ‘Pawan’ Pandey alleged that donations worth Rs 5 crore to Rs 7.5 crore were siphoned off from temple offerings.

On June 13 the state government set up a Special Investigation Team at the trust’s request. The panel comprised Vijay Vishwas Pant, Kiran S and Neel Ratan.

A preliminary inquiry carried out between June 15 and June 20 in Ayodhya flagged prima facie irregularities in the handling of cash and valuables offered by devotees. Investigators said the probe indicated a systematic diversion of cash during collection and counting. Police arrested eight employees associated with handling and counting donations on June 26.

A first information report was registered against eight named accused and other unidentified people under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 306, 316(5), 317(4), 317(5), 61 and 3(5) for offences including criminal breach of trust, cheating, theft and criminal conspiracy, along with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In a statement on Sunday SBI stated it has provided banking services to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust since the Pran Pratishtha ceremony in January 2024. The bank stated it has extended full cooperation to the SIT during the inquiry and remains committed to assisting the ongoing investigation.

Gaurav Singh clarified his connection was with the bank branch and not the trust. "Temple is not our client. The SBI is. We are the second vendor. I don’t want to make any comment on the matter because I have nothing to do with the temple. Sainik Security Services provided the bank with the manpower it desired. At the bank’s recommendation, Sainik Security Services employed 19 people as caretakers [peons] and handed them over to the bank," Gaurav Singh said.