Lucknow: Citing widespread coverage of the Ram temple donation theft by international media, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said the BJP had tarnished India’s image and angered the Sanatanis across the globe.“The news about donation and offering theft at Ram Temple has been flashing across the globe. Sanatanis living in different countries are feeling embarrassed by the bad name that the BJP and their associates have brought upon the country. They are hurt because they either sent offerings or had flown down to Ayodhya themselves and donated generously to the temple,” Akhilesh said in a statement.He said this has brought infamy not only to the religion but to the country as well.“Now even global investors are in two minds over investing in India wondering if it would be right to rely on a govt which has not spared the donations and offerings that people had made to their deity. BJP govt has lost its religious, cultural, political and economic credibility,” the former UP CM said.In a related development, Akhilesh shared on X a video purportedly showing a couple who had travelled to Ayodhya to visit the Ram Temple and allegedly fell victim to pickpockets at the railway station.In the video, the couple can be heard narrating their ordeal to a journalist saying that when they approached the police and requested them to screen the CCTV footage to identify the culprits, the police told them that the cameras were not operational.“Despite such a major incident (like donation theft), pickpockets are roaming freely in Ayodhya in contrast to the chief minister’s claims that criminals have left the state of Uttar Pradesh,” Akhilesh wrote in Hindi in the accompanying post on X.‘Police probe only cosmetic exercise’Pointing fingers at the objectivity of the police investigations into the Ram temple donation theft, Akhilesh described it as more of a cosmetic exercise than a real probe aimed at prosecuting the culprits.“Instead of raiding (related locations) in Karnataka and Haryana, raids are being conducted in Uttar Pradesh. They (cops) are not going to locations where the donation theft booty is lying. Instead, they conduct cosmetic exercise to merely complete formalities,” Akhilesh said.Earlier, Akhilesh had raised the issue of one of the Trust members flying down to Karnataka and Haryana before and after the donation theft had surfaced. Allegations were that this member was frequently visited by relatives who travelled to Karnataka by train and returned to Ayodhya by flight.
