Ayodhya
\nA trust that runs India\u2019s grand Ram temple, whose consecration was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024 after decades of controversy, has overhauled its leadership after people involved in counting donations were accused of stealing millions of rupees in offerings.
\nThe construction of the temple dedicated to the Hindu god-king Lord Ram on the site of a demolished mosque fulfilled one of the biggest promises of Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party, which derives its support mainly from the Hindu majority.
\nThe alleged theft at the temple has provided the opposition with ammunition ahead of an election due early next year in bellwether Uttar Pradesh, India\u2019s most populous state, where the temple is located in the city of Ayodhya.
\nThe temple site was bitterly contested for decades, sparking nationwide riots in 1992 that killed 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, police say, after a Hindu mob destroyed the 16th-century Babri Masjid there.
\nThe Supreme Court handed the land to Hindus in 2019, ordering that Muslims be given a separate plot.
\n\u2018Shameful incident\u2019
\nTrustees of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, set up by Modi\u2019s government to build the temple, met on Monday and said they accepted the resignation of General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra.
\nThey appointed an interim secretary and a committee to identify candidates for a newly created position of chief executive.
\nThe trust did not say how much money had been stolen, but authorities said following the arrest of eight people last month that nearly 8 million rupees ($83,967) had been recovered from seven of them. Until March 31, the temple had received 5.82 billion rupees ($61 million) in offerings.
\n\u201cThis donation theft is a very shameful incident for all of us,\u201d trust treasurer Govindadev Giri told reporters. \u201cWe all are hurt.\u201d
\nThe Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, from which Modi\u2019s party emerged, has urged Hindus to be patient and restrained to \u201cfoil the conspiracies of anti-Hindu, anti-national forces who seek to exploit this unfortunate incident to malign Hindu dharma and society\u201d.
\nOpposition calls on Modi to speak up
\nOpposition parties have asked for the trust to be dissolved and Modi to speak up on the issue. The prime minister, whose party has ruled Uttar Pradesh since 2017 but did poorly there in the national election in 2024, is on a tour of Indonesia from where he will fly to Australia and New Zealand.
\n\u201cThe country does not need piecemeal resignations,\u201d Congress party spokesperson Pawan Khera said. \u201cIt deserves a complete dissolution and overhaul of the trust, and every one of its members must face an independent, Supreme Court-supervised investigation.\u201d
\nModi\u2019s BJP has accused the opposition of being opportunistic in attacking the government over the theft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ayodhya A trust that runs India\u2019s grand Ram temple, whose consecration was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024 after decades of controversy, has overhauled its leadership after people involved in counting donations were accused of stealing millions of rupees in offerings. The construction of the temple dedicated to the Hindu god-king Lord Ram …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99972,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99959\/revisions\/99972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}