Shafaqna Pakistan: Indian police are investigating allegations of financial embezzlement at a temple in northern India that has been a prominent symbol in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics, according to a senior state official.
The Ram Mandir temple in Uttar Pradesh, constructed at a site where a mosque had stood for centuries before its demolition, was inaugurated in 2024 in a high-profile ceremony attended by Modi.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed to probe allegations of misappropriation of cash donations made by devotees.
“We have set up an SIT inquiry on the recommendation of the trust that administers the temple,” Adityanath, a Hindu monk and the state’s chief minister, said during a public event.
“If anyone has any documentary proof, please provide it to the SIT,” he added.
The scale of the alleged embezzlement is unclear but opposition parties and local media reports say it could amount to more than $20 million.
The construction of the temple cost an estimated $240 million, all of which was sourced entirely from public donations, according to the project’s backers.
According to The Indian Express newspaper, daily offerings from devotees average around $10,000, going up to $60,000 on auspicious days.
Devout Hindus claim that the god Ram was born in the town of Ayodhya — home to the temple — more than 7,000 years ago, but that the Babri mosque was built over his birthplace by Mughal emperor Babar.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — then in the opposition — played an instrumental role in public campaigning that eventually led to the mosque’s demolition in 1992.
The destruction helped propel the party, and eventually Mr Modi, as unstoppable electoral juggernauts, displacing the secularist Congress party that had governed India almost without interruption since independence from Britain.
Source: Dunya News
