LUCKNOW, July 5 -- Having returned to Lucknow on late Friday night after completing two days of intensive field investigation in Ayodhya, the Uttar Pradesh government's three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) has turned the Ram temple donation misappropriation probe into a full-fledged financial forensic audit, reconstructing the temple's entire donation trail.

The team is mapping over two years of pilgrim footfall since January 2024, when the temple was inaugurated, against actual bank deposits made by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust over a six-year period since its inception on February 5, 2020, according to highly placed government sources.

Before leaving Ayodhya, the SIT sought extensive records from the Trust, i...