Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 22: Five people have been booked for allegedly collecting donations for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya through a ‘fake’ local outfit.

One of the five accused, having a criminal record, has been arrested.

A written complaint was filed in this regard by district president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

As part of a nationwide campaign of VHP to collect voluntary donations from people for the construction of the grand Ram temple, teams of VHP and RSS workers have been constituted in Pilibhit.

When one such team reached the Kala Mandir locality under Sungarhi police station to collect the donation, devotees told team members that they had already given money to another local outfit.

The VHP functionary told the police that members of the other outfit had issued ‘fake’ receipts to voluntary donors even though they were not authorized to collect money for Ram temple construction.

Sungarhi SHO, Shrikant Dwiwedi, said that the receipt issued by the local outfit revealed the names of its office bearers. All of them were found to be the residents of Pilibhit city.

The police have now booked them under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forging a document purporting to be a receipt acknowledging the payment of money), 468 (committing forgery, intending that the document forged shall be used for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document).