Two arrested with fake currency notes worth Rs 20,000

Police arrested three persons from East Burdwan's Kalna on Saturday night on charges of carrying Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN). Acting on a tip-off, the investigators stopped an ambulance near Purba Sahapur in Kanla and found three persons carrying FICN worth Rs 20,000, all in Rs 2000 currency notes, along with firearms and narcotic substances.

The accused Sanjoy Majhi, Shibu Rajbanshi and the ambulance driver Pratap were arrested and they were interrogated by the investigators throughout the night.

Police sources said that Majhi and Rajbanshi hired the ambulance to reach East Burdwan's Samudragarh. They wanted to send those fake notes and narcotic substances to another person who was supposed to take the consignment to Malda. The investigators also learnt that the ambulance was coming from Hooghly. "The owner of the ambulance is a resident of Hooghly. We are conducting raids to capture the owner of the vehicle," an investigator said adding: "The arrested persons also have connections with local anti-socials."

It may be mentioned that state police earlier had recorded many such cases from Malda, Murshidabad and Burdwan districts where FICN were seized. National Investigation Agency (NIA), along with state police, arrested two persons from a hotel near Malda Railway Station on charges of stocking fake Indian currency note (FICN) on March 6, this year. The investigators had recovered Rs 3.98 lakh from two accused, Talat Mehmood and Golam Murtaza, both residents of English Bazar.

Earlier, the Border Security Force (BSF) had seized FICN worth Rs 96,000 from Malda district in February 19, this year. Acting on a tip-off, the BSF had captured a person identified as Shariful Shah, resident of Nadia district as he was trying to enter India from Bangladesh with fake notes worth Rs 96,000. There are many other records of similar incidents as well. On January 23, Malda police arrested Ziyaul Sheikh from Bakhrabad village with a counterfeit note of Rs 2,000. On February 4, Digambar Mondal (42), a karmadhayaksha of the Congress-run Kaliachak-III panchayat samiti, was arrested by Malda police with two counterfeit Rs 2,000 notes. On February 8, police arrested one Azizur Rahaman, a resident of Baishnabnagar in Malda, with fake notes totaling Rs 80,000. Six days after the incident, NIA sleuths arrested one Umar Faruq from Golapganj in Kaliachak with three counterfeit notes of Rs 2,000.