Sonepur: Police Monday seized fake currency notes worth Rs 3.5 lakh here and arrested two persons including an engineer for their involvement in the racket.
The accused were identified as Sachchidananda Bastia (19) and Shailendra Pradhan (19) of Khatakhatia village under Manamunda police limits in Boudh district.
The main accused Sachchidananda is a mechanical engineer by profession, the police said. The seizure list included 100 fake Rs 2,000 denomination notes, 300 fake notes of `500, two mobile handsets and a bike without registration number.
This apart, a colour printer, paper cutter, ink and other material used for preparing counterfeit notes were seized from the house of Shailandra.
A case has been registered under several sections of the IPC and the two have been produced in a court, SP Prafulla Kumar Patra said. Further probe into the matter is on, he added.
On being tipped off about the influx of fake notes into Sonepur, the police detained a bike-borne youth late Sunday night at Kunja Chhak of this town. The fake currencies were seized from his possession, it was learnt.
Providing more details to the media during a press meet held at the district police headquarters, the SP said Sachchidananda, currently employed with a Pune-based firm as a computer engineer, was the mastermind of the racket who prints fake notes and supplies them to different regions.
He came to the village a month ago ahead of his sister’s marriage and adopted this method to make fast money, the police said.
While the engineer was preparing the notes at Shailendra’s house, some more known names of the town are suspected to be involved in the racket.
The phone call details of the accused are being verified and others having links with the racket would be behind the bars soon, the SP said.
Additional SP Pitanath Majhi and IIC Amarendra Shandha were present during the media briefing.
People of the town are in a dilemma over circulation of fake high denomination currencies in the market, a report said. PNN
