look news india
There has been a stir from Ayodhya to Delhi ever since the revelation of theft from the donation box in Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple. Champat Rai, the outgoing General Secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, who was silent till now in this entire episode, has finally broken his silence. Two letters have come out from their side to clarify the situation. The first letter he has shared on his official ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) handle addressed to Ram devotees. But what is being discussed the most is his second letter, which he wrote to the SIT and it is now becoming increasingly viral on social media. In this viral letter, Champat Rai has raised many sharp questions on the security arrangements of the bank and the functioning of the SIT.
‘I was out so why wasn’t my signature waited for?’ In the letter written to SIT which is going viral on social media, Champat Rai has directly rejected the guidelines of counting process (SOP). According to the letter, the SOP fixed for counting of donations on February 6, 2025, is signed by Dr. Anil Mishra of the Trust and Govind Mishra, Chief Manager of SBI Ayodhya. Champat Rai has written in a strong tone that he does not agree with this document at all and rejects it completely. He claimed that he received the information about this confidential letter from his account office after a year on 13 June 2026. His biggest question is that his signature is on every contract from August 2020 till now, then why was his signature not taken on this important document? If he was out of Ayodhya, why not wait for his return?
Chairs, tables and clothes with pockets helped in the theft. In the viral letter, the functioning of State Bank of India (SBI) has been directly held responsible for the donation theft. Champat Rai has revealed in the letter that an MoU was signed with the bank on 9 February 2024, on every page of which his signature is present. Under this, strong security arrangements were to be made, such as iron doors and CCTV cameras. But the suggestion given by the bank to count the notes on chair-table instead of sitting on the ground became the biggest reason for the theft. When the incident of theft came to light, the table was removed and the counting was started by sitting back on the ground.
Champat Rai, who openly flouted the chest room rules of the bank, has also targeted the senior officials of the bank and said that there are some strict rules for the chest room of any bank in the country. But SBI did not follow these rules at all. The clothes given to the employees going inside the counting room had pockets. Apart from this, the rule of special search while entering and exiting the room was also ignored. All this happened when these things were clearly mentioned in the guidelines.
The notes were being counted by the housekeeping staff! A very shocking claim has also been made in this letter regarding the recruitment process. According to Champat Rai, the youths selected by the bank to count the notes were officially recruited as ‘house keeping staff’. He raised the question whether this method is appropriate? Champat Rai believes that there has been gross negligence by the senior officials of the bank in this entire matter and the bank itself did not follow the hastily made guidelines, which resulted in theft of donations.