NEW DELHI: A private security agency, six of whose recruits are among the eight people arrested in the Ayodhya Ram Temple donation “theft” case, on Wednesday denied any involvement in the alleged embezzlement of offerings, saying it had deployed personnel for the State Bank of India (SBI) at the bank’s request.The clarification came amid the ongoing probe into the case by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has made the arrests.SBI, which maintains the temple trust’s account, had outsourced the task of counting donation funds to Varanasi-based Sainik Security Services.“Our company has nothing to do with the alleged donation theft at the Ram temple. We recruited 22 people and sent them to the SBI branch in Ayodhya for housekeeping work. What work the bank assigned to them thereafter is not known to us,” Singh told PTI.“We were engaged only to provide housekeeping staff to SBI. What duties these employees eventually performed and why they performed them is for the bank to explain,” he added.He further claimed that all 22 personnel were recruited on the instructions of the chief manager of SBI’s Ayodhya branch.“The chief manager of the SBI branch in Ayodhya had sent us the list of names and biodata of these 22 people. They were all earlier working with another agency,” Singh stated.According to reports, the bank had sought to replace the outsourced cash-counting staff at the Ram Temple around three months ago after suspecting irregularities in the handling of donations. However, members of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust reportedly did not allow the staff to be changed.The alleged embezzlement came to light after an SIT constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government submitted its preliminary findings, following which an FIR was registered on June 25.Arrests followed, and nearly Rs 80 lakh in cash, along with some foreign currency, has been recovered so far from six of the accused.The investigation is underway.(With PTI inputs)
