The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team to probe allegations of financial mismanagement at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, after the dispute moved from temple circles into a formal criminal inquiry. Government officials said the SIT was formed on the directions of Yogi Adityanath.
The team includes Vijay Vishwas Pant, Kiran S., and Neel Ratan. It was set up after the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust asked for an independent investigation to establish the truth and to counter what it described as attempts to tarnish the temple’s image. The request came as questions over the handling of donations at the Ram Temple sharpened, making RAM a live search term for devotees, political workers and temple employees alike.
The probe gained urgency because it was followed by arrests. Two temple employees were taken into custody soon after Saturday, and authorities reportedly recovered around Rs 10 lakh in cash from the residence of Lav Kush Mishra. That recovery has become the most concrete sign so far that investigators are looking at whether donations or temple funds were diverted, concealed or otherwise handled outside approved channels.
The trust’s call for an independent probe points to the pressure around the case. It wanted the facts established before the row turned into a wider political fight, but that argument has run alongside sharper public accusations. Vinay Katiyar said that if trustees themselves were found to be involved in wrongdoing, it would undermine the purpose of the temple project. He added that those responsible for theft had no place in the trust and should be removed, before saying, “Sab ke sab chor hain, jo bhi is samay hain…(all of them are thieves)”.
Katiyar also said the Ram Temple movement had demanded sacrifice over decades, noting that thousands had gone to jail and that Former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh had resigned from his post. Pankaj Chaudhary said the government was conducting a thorough investigation and that agencies were examining all aspects of the case. He said whoever is found guilty would face strict legal action and that no one would be spared, regardless of influence.
The unanswered question is not whether the state will act next — it already has — but how far the inquiry will go into the temple’s financial handling and whether the cash recovery points to isolated wrongdoing or something wider. That is what the SIT now has to establish, and what the trust said it wanted from the start.
