Ram Temple Theft Accused Laundered Cash Through Relatives Bank Accounts: Cops

Police investigating the Ram Temple donation theft case have found that prime accused Avinash Shukla and two others routed stolen cash through bank accounts belonging to relatives and friends to avoid detection. Officers said the accused deliberately spread the stolen funds across multiple third party accounts rather than depositing large sums directly into their own, making the money trail harder to trace during initial scrutiny.

In light of the findings, police have frozen 30 bank accounts belonging to the accused and their family members as part of the ongoing financial probe. The accounts are being examined to establish the full extent of the funds funnelled through relatives, with investigators cross checking deposit patterns, transaction timings and withdrawal amounts against the period covered by the alleged donation counting room thefts.

Officers said the laundering trail forms a critical part of the case being built against Shukla , who has already been named the prime accused by the Special Investigation Team probing the matter, and whose personal bank transactions were found to be far higher than his declared monthly income. The fresh findings on relatives' accounts add another layer to the financial evidence already gathered through recovery records and transaction analysis.

Police said the two other accused whose relatives' accounts were used have not been named in the fresh disclosure, though officers confirmed that verification of ownership and source of funds for all 30 frozen accounts is underway. The development comes as the broader investigation into the temple donation theft continues to widen, with authorities examining both the alleged pilferage from the counting room and how the proceeds were subsequently moved and concealed.