Rautahat, April 27
Madhes Province is slowly turning into a hub for transaction in fake currency notes. The recent spate of arrests of persons involved in smuggling fake currency notes in Sarlahi, Mahottari, Dhanusha, and other Madhes districts is evidence of this.
Sources claim there is a racket involved in printing and disseminating such notes in the market. While the main persons involved in such illegal transaction are rarely arrested, it's the carriers that end up in police custody.
Last month alone, police arrested 10 persons involved in the fake Nepali currency notes racket in Sarlahi. On March 27, 30-year-old Ram Prasad Sah of Arnaha in Balara Municipality was arrested with 268 fake Nepali currency notes in the denomination of 1,000. Police seized the fake currency from a bag he was carrying on a motorbike along the Bagmati canal in Barathawa.
Police also seized various logistics required to print fake currency bills from the bag. A week before that, police had seized 530 fake currency bills in the denomination of 1,000 from a heap of garbage near Durga temple of Lalbandi.
According to SP Nareshraj Subedi, besides the fake bills, police also found notesize paper cut-outs stacked in bundles in a garbage heap. "We've seen more cases of transaction of fake currency of late, but we're doing everything to bust the racket and have so far arrested more than 10 persons in this connection," said SP Subedi.
Lately, a woman was arrested with fake currency notes worth Rs 771,500 in Dhanusha. Police had carried checked the woman upon suspicion. The woman had apparently brought fake notes from India and was planning to use them in Janakpur. Twenty-five-yearold Anu Kumari Sah was arrested with fake notes.
Leaders of local civil society have urged police to act against persons involved in the transaction of fake notes and control the menace early to prevent the province from developing further into a thriving hub of fake currency transaction.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 28, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
