After theft of offerings, now it is the turn of land buying and selling, SIT will investigate the horoscope of land deals of Ram Mandir Trust

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the alleged theft of offerings in Shri Ram Temple will now also conduct a detailed investigation into the land purchase deals made by the temple trust. After the allegations of buying low priced land at a high price, the SIT has also included the cases related to land purchase in its scope of investigation. According to sources, allegations have been made in many land deals that the land in the same areas which was acquired by the government at a relatively low price on the basis of circle rate, was purchased by the temple trust at a much higher price. Questions have been raised regarding these deals for a long time.

Recently, a Rajya Sabha MP from Aam Aadmi Party has handed over documents related to 11 land deals to the SIT Chairman. In these documents, questions have been raised on alleged irregularities in land purchase and pricing. The investigating agency is also investigating this aspect as to what was the reason behind the same two persons repeatedly appearing as witnesses in most of the land deals.

Pressure increased on Champat Rai, then he resigned

The pressure of questions is also increasing on Champat Rai, former General Secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, who played an important role from the Ram Mandir movement to the legal battle in the Supreme Court. Experts believe that adequate lessons were not learned from the land purchase dispute in the initial phase, due to which later the matter of alleged theft of offerings became more serious.

It is alleged that despite receiving information about alleged irregularities in the offering case, strict action was not taken in time. Despite discussions about recovery of around Rs 80 lakh, FIR was not lodged immediately. At that time, citing internal audit, the Trust had denied any major irregularity.

Meanwhile, after increasing controversy and political allegations and counter-allegations, there was intervention at the level of Central and Uttar Pradesh governments, after which SIT was formed to investigate the entire episode. Now the SIT is thoroughly investigating all the disputed deals of land purchase along with the offering case.