Three held in Punjab for circulating fake currency

PATIALA - Three people have been arrested here on charges of circulating fake currency notes and documents in Punjab and Haryana over the past few months, police said Saturday.

Fake currency notes with a face value of over Rs.530,000 were recovered from their possession, a police official said.

“We raided a house in Bahadurgarh area of Patiala Friday and recovered fake currency notes. We arrested Harjit Singh, Bahadur Singh and Thakur Gill,” Deputy Superintendent of Police (detective) Ashish Kapoor told IANS.

He said the 530 counterfeit notes they recovered were in the denomination of Rs.1,000, Rs.100, Rs.50 and Rs.20.

They planned to circulate these notes in different parts of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh during the festival season. The three have confessed to their crime.

A colour printer, scanner, computer and various fake documents were also recovered from their possession.

Kapoor said Gill, who was the kingpin of the gang, was a diploma holder in computer science engineering.

According to police sources, the consignment of fake notes was smuggled from Pakistan through the Punjab border.

They were also running a racket of fake documents, including identity cards, driving licence, stamps and ration cards. They have links in government offices and in different states, another police official said.

In a separate recovery, Punjab Police seized counterfeit currency notes with face value of Rs.468,000 and arrested a man and a woman from Ludhiana city Thursday.

We arrested Paramjit Kaur and Satpal Singh with fake currency notes from Ludhiana. Both of them are residents of Patiala town. Notes were in the denomination of Rs.1,000, Rs.500 and Rs.100, a police official said.