LUCKNOW: Almost a year after the death of Mahant Narendra Giri, the chief of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (ABAP), in mysterious circumstances, a three-member team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) opened the sealed rooms of Baghambari Gaddi in Prayagraj and found around Rs 3 crore in cash, ornaments worth crores and 10 quintal ghee.
The rooms were opened on Thursday by the sleuths investigating the seer’s death after his successor, Mahant Balbir Giri, moved court demanding that all the property and cash inside the math must be returned.
The officials handed over the recovered items to the mutt authorities.
Balbir Giri has succeeded Mahant Narendra Giri, 62, who was also the head of Baghambari Gaddi at the time of his death on September 20 last year.
The seer was found hanging with a rope from the ceiling fan of his room. The Uttar Pradesh government had handed over the investigation to the CBI.
A senior officer privy to the probe disclosed that besides the cash, gold and silver ornaments and ghee, property-related documents were also found in the room where the late seer used to live.
The CBI had taken over the case of the seer’s death on September 24, lodging an FIR against Anand Giri, a disciple of Narendra Giri, under charges of abetment to suicide. Thereafter, the premises were sealed.
After a month of investigation, CBI filed a charge sheet in connection with the case stating that Anand Giri, Adya Tiwari and Sandeep Tiwari circulated an objectionable audio tarnishing Narendra Giri’s image and mounted immense psychological pressure on him which led him to take his life.
The three are currently lodged in the Naini Central jail.