The massive theft of public donations from the Ram Temple in Ayodhya was first detected in 2021, as per an interview given by Mahipal Singh who served as the accounts in charge for the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust between January 2021 and May 2022.
During an interview with journalist Abhishek Upadhyay on YouTube and cited by the BBC Hindi, Singh laid bare the precise mechanics of this theft. His daily duty stationed him directly at the counting centre of the police outpost where all cash offerings from devotees were officially tallied.
In his conversation with Upadhyay, Singh identified bank officials Ratnesh Chaturvedi and Gagandeep who visited the counting site regularly. Fourteen men were employed to sort the currency notes while Singh oversaw the process. Singh began to notice a pattern where these boys packed more bundles of cash than they recorded on the official vouchers.
The workers deliberately undervalued the voucher figures and siphoned the surplus money. When his suspicions peaked one day, he demanded that a specific cash box be opened, discovering instantly that five lakh rupees were being actively stolen right in front of him.
Singh reported this theft directly to trust members, Gopal Rao and Champat Rai in December 2021. Instead of investigating the crime and punishing the culprits, the trust leadership retaliated against the whistleblower. Anil Mishra, another trustee who has now resigned, immediately replaced Singh with another individual, forcing Singh to stop attending his official duties.
