Not only that, the accused has also revealed to the police that this looting has been going on for a long time by exploiting multiple loopholes in the security and surveillance of the temple's donation counting center. After getting permission from the court, the police interrogated Avinash Shukla for almost two hours on Tuesday. During that interrogation, he confessed to stealing crores of rupees and gave a detailed account of how the entire operation was carried out.
During the police interrogation, the name of the temple trustee Anil Mishra also came up in the statement of Avinash Shukla. He claimed that Anil Mishra played a very important role in the entire process of counting donations. It is worth noting that when questions started being raised from all sides about the irregularities in the temple's donation collection, its maintenance and surveillance system, Anil Mishra and the general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirthakshetra Trust, Champat Rai, resigned last week.
Apart from Avinash Shukla, the police have arrested seven more people in this case. The list of those arrested includes Ramashankar alias Tinnu Yadav, who is known to be very close to Champat Rai, Subhash Srivastava, the officer in charge of counting donations, and counting workers Anukalpa Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Ram Shankar Mishra and Karunesh Pandey.
According to sources in the investigation, Avinash told the police that one of the two keys to the donation counting room was with Tinnu Yadav and the other key was in the custody of the bank staff. The theft could not have been done by any one person alone, it was a well-planned joint 'operation'. When one person would withdraw money, the others would hide him from all sides and create a 'human shield'.
The accused were very well aware of the location of the CCTV cameras inside the temple. Knowing how far the view of a camera reaches, they used 'blind spots' skillfully. To avoid the CCTV, the cash was first hidden in the bathroom or toilet and later taken out at the opportunity. Due to their closeness to influential people in the trust, no one suspected them, so they did not have to face strict surveillance.
The accused told the police that even though cameras were installed in the temple premises and there was a system to monitor them from the control room, the security guards did not keep an active watch on their movements. And taking advantage of this lax system, crores of rupees were looted. Shukla also said that land and houses were later bought with the stolen money.
The police are now searching for the source of the accused's financial transactions and all the movable and immovable properties in their names. The investigators are investigating how this theft went unnoticed for so long and whether any bigger gang or influential person is involved behind it.
After the allegations of this huge theft came to light, the Yogi Adityanath government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on June 13. However, a very significant turn has come in the investigation. It is learnt that on June 5, that is, before the formal FIR was filed in this incident, Rs 58 lakh was recovered from the house of Avinash Shukla by the trust.
The remaining money was then returned through bank transfers between June 5 and 8. According to legal experts, this turn of events makes it clear that a desperate attempt to recover and embezzle money behind the scenes began before the matter could go to court. For now, the role of the trust at that time is also under the scanner of the police.