5 arrested with banned notes from Uluberia

Five persons were arrested from Uluberia with demonetised notes worth Rs 25 lakh on Saturday night from a railway station. The arrested have been identified as Dipak Kumar Soni, Mukesh Soni, Ankit Jain, Khushir Alam and Ajit Ghorui.

The Government Railway Police (GRP) seized 20 notes of Rs 500 and all other notes were old Rs 1,000 notes from the accused. The accused persons were interrogated by the investigators. Raids are on to arrest more people in connection with the case.

The investigators learnt that these five, led by Dipak Kumar Soni, came to Uluberia's Birshibpur railway station on Saturday night to meet a person who gave them assurance to exchange the old currency notes with new ones.

The accused persons were waiting for the man to reach the station and collect the bag from them but nobody came to meet them. They were seen impatiently pacing platform number 1 and climbing up the footbridge time and again.

The on-duty GRP officers asked them about their destination, but they could not answer. Officers took these five people to the police station where they confessed to their crime.

"These five persons are jewellers. They were given assurance to exchange old demonetised notes by another. The latter told them to come to Birshibpur rail station from where he would receive the bag of old currency notes. But he did not come," said a GRP officer.

The GRP learnt that Dipak, Mukesh, Ankit, Khusir and Ajit agreed to the deal where they were supposed to pay 10 percent of Rs 25 lakh to the person.

But he could not be reached over telephone on Saturday night when Dipak, Mukesh and Khusir repeatedly tried to call him.

"We suspect that the person was there in the station and closely observing the movements of Dipak, Mukesh, Ankit, Khusir and Ajit. He never came to the front and escaped when he saw police taking them to the police station," the officer added.