One arrested for trying to smuggle out fake notes

Police arrested one person at Baisnabnagar in Malda with Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) on Saturday night. The accused person was trying to cross the border from the Indian side with a bagful of fake notes but he was captured by the Border Security Force (BSF) officers. The officers found Rs 1.96 lakh in FICN, all of which were in denominations of Rs 2000, from him.

Police said the accused, Nazimul Haque, was the resident of Baisnabnagar's Bhagabanpur village.

"Officers interrogated him and now they are trying to understand how the FICN entered in India. They suspect that the notes were made in Bangladesh," said a police officer.

Police learnt that Haque was a trader in Malda who had earlier gone to Bangladesh. His two friends — Talat Mehmood and Golam Murtaza were earlier arrested on charges of carrying FICN a few months ago.

National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Malda police arrested Talat Mehmood and Golam Murtaza with Rs 3.98 lakh in fake currency, all of which were in Rs 2,000 notes. Mehmood belongs to Budhia village of English Bazar, while Murtaza is from of Kamalabari in the same area.

Nazimul Haque's arrest in Baisnabnagar is the sixth such arrest in a span of six months. An alarming fact about the fake notes that are being seized by the police is that in some cases, out of the 17 exclusive security features — that the Narendra Modi-government at the Centre claims the Rs 2,000 note is equipped with — 14 were successfully copied by the fake currency makers, sources said.

It should be recalled that Malda police and Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested a person on the charge of stocking FICN, from Rathbari in Malda earlier this year. Investigators arrested 45-year-old Mukulesh Mian, alias Bhutto and seized fake Rs 2,000 notes worth Rs 92,000. The Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had also started a investigation into the FICN smuggling racket. It should also be recalled that police had arrested a person from Malda and seized FICN in Rs 2000 denominations in January. The incident took place just two months after Centre's announcement of demonetisation of high value currency notes.