Ayodhya | An FIR was lodged here on Thursday over allegations of embezzlement of donations at the Ram temple, officials said.
The FIR comes amid an ongoing probe into the matter by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which submitted a preliminary report of its findings to the Uttar Pradesh government two days ago.
A police official confirmed to PTI on Thursday that the FIR has been lodged.
A senior official told PTI that the SIT has made some "strong, strict" recommendations and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also "very serious" on the matter.
"Whosoever is found guilty would be sternly dealt with," the officer said, explaining the sequence of the events that led to the FIR.
The state government constituted the SIT on June 13 on a request from the temple trust, following allegations of misappropriation of donations received at the Ayodhya Ram temple.
The SIT comprises Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, Inspector General of Police Kiran S and Finance Department Special Secretary Neel Ratan.
The FIR was registered on the complaint of Krishna Mohan, a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, the officials said.
According to police, the case has been registered under sections 306 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master), 316 (criminal breach of trust), 317 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), among other penal provisions.
The officials said the FIR was lodged following recommendations made in the SIT's preliminary report.
An official said no arrests have so far been made in the case and that the accused are being questioned, while a detailed investigation is underway.
The official said the accused named in the FIR are Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu, besides some unidentified persons.
Most of those named were involved with the donation-counting process, another official said.
The names of some of the accused named in the FIR were circulating on the social media ever since Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav flagged the issue that has since become a raging political controversy.
Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, named in the FIR, is said to be a former driver of trust general secretary Champat Rai.
In his interaction with the media after the controversy broke out, Tinnu Yadav had denied any role in cash counting and blamed it all on some "jealous people", whom he however had not named.
Other named accused like Lavkush Mishra and Anukalp Mishra were among those involved in donation counting -- primarily cash and valuables.
PTI tried to contact senior trust officials, including Rai and Anil Mishra, for comments on the developments, but they were not immediately available.
The development came hours after the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) joined the growing demand for an FIR over the alleged embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple, even as senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders, including party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, reached the temple town on Thursday evening, demanding that a case be lodged.
