The Chamoli Police and Special Investigation Team (SIT) have made an arrest in the case of Badrinath temple donation theft. Pramod Nautiyal, who is the main accused in the case, was arrested late Sunday night through a joint operation at his house in Dehradun, Uttarakhand Police said on Monday.
After the arrest, police teams rushed Nautiyal to Badrinath, where he is now being questioned extensively. SSP (Chamoli) Surjit Singh Panwar said that the investigation process is moving fast in the case to find out the extent of the financial irregularities at the historic Himalayan temple.
BKTC administrative aide involved in embezzlement
Nautiyal held considerable influence, working as the personal assistant of the chairman of the Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC), which manages the Badrinath temple as well as other temples of Uttarakhand under its mandate as a statutory body.
He was suspended from duty formally last week after an internal inquiry done by a 4-member BKTC panel, which reviewed the discrepancies on the accounting ledger and found the grave accusations of donation mismanagement against Nautiyal to be prima facie true.
CCTV footages reveal inside treasure theft in temple donation
According to case files published by the Uttarakhand Police, the structural closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage proved definitive against the personal assistant inside the highly secure temple donation counting room.
CCTV evidence details: It is alleged that Nautiyal made several entries into the counting room followed by exits, and then went straight to his office with a deliberate pattern of movement to hide any missing asset.
Nautiyal is alleged to have hidden and stolen:
- Currency notes of ₹500 and ₹100 denominations.
- Offering envelopes belonging to the devotees that were estimated to contain between ₹10,000 to ₹12,000.
- Sacred valuables such as gold coins, silver coins, and rare Shaligram stones.
Quad-layer investigation sets off nationwide political clashes
The illegal cash flow was discovered on July 2 while performing the regular process of reconciling the daily offering money by the devotees without abiding by the required legal procedures. Due to its high-risk nature, the case has entered an unprecedented quad-layer investigation grid as follows:
Investigation layer institution involved & responsibilities
- Legal By the Chamoli District Police for handling statutory matters.
- Recovery of Property & Network By the Special Investigation Team (SIT).
- Compliance in Departmental Procedures Through BKTC Internal Inquiry Committee.
Review at a high level: A 3-member panel chaired by the Garhwal Division Commissioner reporting directly to the state government.
This incident has been fast converted into a serious political showdown at the national level. In the wake of the past controversy regarding offering discrepancies at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the opposition Congress party has initiated an offensive campaign against the BJP state government on the grounds of state-managed temple administration corruption. At the same time, the case is progressing fast in legal process with the hearing of the petition filed by Nautiyal in the Uttarakhand High Court on Friday, July 17.
Bureau Report
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