“I will not myself indulge in corruption nor will I allow others to do so,” Narendra Modi had repeatedly asserted. Later he directed the ministries to ‘immediately send details of non-performing and corrupt officers for their compulsory retirement’. This was in 2019.Emphasising his no-compromise with corruption, he had earlier assured the nation that he would bring back crores stashed away abroad by the Gujarati businessmen and put Rs 15 lakh in the bank account of every Indian. That was the kind of Modi’s enthusiasm for the fight against corruption.Why then does Modi maintain a stoic maun when huge funds belonging to the deity are being looted by god’s servants? As per the law, a deity is a juristic person and owner of the temple properties. Devotees consider lord Ram as maryada Purushottam.When will Modi break his silence while Ayodhya’s Ram is cheated and looted by lakhs if not crores of rupees by his self-certified bhakts? As per reports, the total amount plundered ranges from a few lakhs to as much as Rs 1,400 crore. We don’t know whether the actual amount will ever come out.This is due to the clumsy manner in which the investigations by Uttar Pradesh’s special investigation team (SIT) is moving. For starters, the probe was conducted for 12 whole days without even a formal FIR. There are also signs of deliberate attempts to mislead the public from behind the scenes by interested parties.Apparently, a big section within the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) fear that any unwanted quasi-judicial exposure will harm the reputation of the entire Ayodhya movement. Therefore, the state VHP spokesman had demanded strong action against those who allege misappropriation. He condemned those who raise ‘baseless and factless’ charges without providing any evidence. Of course, the VHP ended up buckling under pressure and called for an FIR.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath is torn between the VHP hardliners on the one hand and the need to win elections on the other. However, national leaders like Modi, Amit Shah and Mohan Bhagwat have avoided comments.From the very beginning, the Ayodhya project has been marred by innumerable frauds and swindling. The Wire had narrated the nature of six controversies connected with Ayodhya, including the murky land deals. Opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Aam Aadmi Party had raised several issues related to the land deals.There is also an allegation of Rs 6 lakh being stolen and encashed at the Lucknow branch of the Punjab National Bank using fake cheques. Even the daily donation by the devotees into the 36 donation boxes is counted and accounted for in two shifts by tellers from SBI under and others a senior supervisor.It is also alleged that apart from cash, gold, silver and diamond ornaments donated by devotees have been stealthily replaced with fake items. The Indian Bullion and Jewellers Association’s Anurag Rastogi claimed that there is no trace of bricks and other items in silver he had donated to the temple, and another businessman has complained of never getting a receipt for his donations in silver.Then there is the case of the stolen street lights, including 3,800 bamboo lights and 36 gobo projector lights placed along Rampath and Bhakti path. It was worth Rs 50 lakh. A formal complaint was filed with the police. There was also a move to blame monkeys on the street for the missing lights.Modi cannot pretend as if nothing is happening. It is his bounden duty to identify those who plundered the devotees’ money, whoever they may be and wherever they are, and punish them. For, the Ram temple’s construction has been a ‘joint venture’ by the Modi government and the Sangh parivar.Modi had personally conducted the pran pratishtha of the mandir to the chagrin of Hindu high priests like Shankaracharyas. He had deputed his former principal secretary Nripendra Misra to supervise the activities of the Ayodhya trust. How can he claim he had no role in a movement in which thousands of Ram bhakts had contributed in cash and toil.Every religious group in India has its share of internal financial bungling and tussles: Christians, Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, name any. Muslim internal disputes and fund frauds are too familiar. Some time back, the Andhra Pradesh CID arrested a Church of South India archbishop for a huge church fund scam. The funds involved are to the tune of hundreds of crores.Minority religions like Jains and Sikhs too have similar internal tussles for the control of funds. What matters is how these are detected and punished.Going back to Ayodhya, Vinay Katiyar, a veteran of the mandir movement, and senior BJP leader Rajneesh Singh have already come up with the accusation that some trustees do have a role in the scam. ‘Sab ke sab chor hain,’ Katiyar said. Santosh Dubey, president of the Dharm Sena and Sharad Shukla of the Youth Congress already filed complaints with the police.BJP MP and sexual abuse-accused former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said he was already aware of the big loot going on in Ayodhya but choose to keep mum.Thus, many BJP and Sangh leaders in UP knew about the murky happenings in Ayodhya but every one chose to keep silent, apparently for fear of the high command.The SP’s Akhilesh Yadav was among the first to raise the ‘Ayodhya plunder’, a subject that the mainstream media, as is the norm, had avoided. “If the police are unable to identify the guilty, we can help,” Akhilesh said.The SP-Congress combine is certain to take up the Ayodhya ghotala in a big way during the UP assembly elections next year. The BJP’s campaign planners in Delhi, and Adityanath, are aware of the angry public mood building up over the embezzlement in the Ayodhya temple. They want to hush up the frauds.However, the loot of god’s money (or devotees’ ‘offerings’) at the Ayodhya temple belongs to a different category. Ayodhya has been a joint venture by the Modi government and the Sangh parivar. Thousands of Ram bhakts had contributed to the Ayodhya moment, in cash and toil. Therefore, any fraud in Ram’s fund will deeply hurt them.Consider the anxiety with which Ram bhakts watch the reports about the scam. They keenly follow the details of the counting of the temple’s 36 donation boxes supervised by officials of the government-owned SBI and the allegations of precious items going missing.With the donation scam, the Ayodhya Ram temple has joined the other top rich ones in India. On the top of the list of the richest temples is the Padmanabhaswami temple in Thiruvananthapuram. Then come Tirupati, Guruvayur, Vaishnodevi, the Saibaba mandir in Shirdi, the Madurai Meenakshi temple and the Jagannath temple Puri in that order. Incidentally, each of them has been embroiled in some kind of fund and property controversy.While the Ayodhya mandir controversy erupted, there came similar allegations against the Sree Krishna Janmasthan temple at Mathura. Dinesh Phalahari Maharaj has sent a letter about the fund embezzlement to chief minister Adityanath. He has sought a high-level probe. He alleged that on many occasions, the CCTV installed in the counting room was found mysteriously switched off. This, the baba alleged, was to facilitate the ‘loot’. “Those who have been moving on scooters are now owners of palatial buildings,” he said.In the wake of the Ayodhya loot, social media is agog with a flood of viral videos and photos of similar donation scams. One of these shows a Rs 100 crore cheque donation at the Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha temple in Andhra Pradesh even as his account had a balance of just Rs 17. Another video shows a south Indian priest moving round a counting station where money was being stolen. Angry devotees protested against the theft.P. Raman is a veteran journalist.