Overview
- All eight people linked to the temple donation counting were remanded to 14 days of judicial custody with their remand running until July 13, and police say they recovered about ₹79.85 lakh from seven of the accused.
- The Special Investigation Team received a 15-day extension to broaden the inquiry and will collect bank statements, CCTV footage, rosters and asset records to map transactions and ownership.
- Investigators say suspects described a scheme that hid stolen cash in washrooms, used knowledge of camera positions to avoid CCTV and relied on access to counting-room keys held by insiders and bank-linked staff.
- Two senior trust officials, general secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra, resigned and have been questioned by police while local lawyers have refused to defend the accused and opposition leaders have alleged restrictions on their movements.
- The probe now targets the State Bank of India’s cash-counting arrangements and a Varanasi-based security agency that supplied six of the arrested workers, raising risks to the trust’s reputation and prompting a trust meeting moved up to early July.