The Ayodhya police on Thursday obtained the first police custody remand of an accused in the Ram temple donation controversy.Police search for cash in a haystack in Ayodhya’s Rudauli. (SOURCED)The court of additional district judge (Anti-Corruption) Rajat Varma granted 24-hour police custody remand of Avinash Shukla (from 5pm on Thursday to 5pm on Friday) instead of two days sought by the Ayodhya police.Shukla, from whom ₹20.40 lakh cash was shown to have been recovered by the police earlier, is among the eight accused arrested in the case on June 26. His police custody remand of Shukla coincides with the return of SIT to Ayodhya for its extended probe.According to people familiar with the matter, the Ayodhya police sought Avinash Shukla’s remand at the instance of the SIT.Further arrests are likely based on information obtained from Shukla during the day-long remand, the people quoted above said.As advocates of the Faizabad Bar Association had passed a resolution on June 29 not to represent any of the eight accused in the case, the district legal services authority has provided a government advocate to Shukla.The development comes two days after Ashutosh Tewari, the Ayodhya circle officer who is the investigating officer in the case, interrogated Shukla in Ayodhya jail on Tuesday (June 30).Shukla reportedly pointed a finger at some Trust officials, according to a person familiar with the matter.The Ayodhya police arrested eight men on June 26 – Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra, and Karunesh Pandey.Police search for cash in haystackPolice teams searched a haystack during a raid on the house of an accused Luvkush Mishra at Fagauli in Ayodhya district’s Rudauli tehsil, while looking for cash allegedly embezzled from the Ram temple.The search was carried out on Wednesday and the related video surfaced on Thursday.Lavkush is one of the eight men arrested in the case. He is currently lodged in jail.The Ayodhya police on Wednesday carried out fresh raids at the residences of Luvkush Mishra, Avinash Shukla and Karunesh Pandey as part of the ongoing investigation into the alleged embezzlement of donations at the Ram temple.Police teams comprising 25-30 personnel conducted simultaneous raids around 2pm.In an earlier raid, the police recovered a small trunk with the label “Ram Rajya Kosh” and a QR code on it from the room of Avinash Shukla, one of the eight arrested accused, at a yoga centre in the Kaushalpuri area in Ayodhya.