More than a quarter of the currency in the hands of the public in India currently may be counter-feit. Intelligence Bureau (IB) estimated that fake currency amounting to a mind-boggling Rs 1, 69,000 crore is floating in India. It appears that this fake currency is being pumped in through the official banking system. In Uttar Pradesh in the first week of August, fake currency amounting to nearly Rs 3 Crore was found stashed in chests of the SBI and ICICI Bank.
The banking system is now being used by insiders to circulate fake currency. This was corroborated by what the suspects held in Uttar Pradesh had told police. The central bank has been largely ineffective in monitoring the banking system to check the circulation of counterfeit currency. They have not been able to put in place any comprehensive mechanism to check the entry and spread of fake currency.
Intelligence inputs that Pakistan’s Infer Services Intelligence (ISI) pumps in over Rs. 13 crore annually to fund terrorist activities in Mumbai alone has startled the city police. The fact that this funding is being carried out by dumping fake India currency has put both the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and the crime branch on alert. Obviously the ISI is cleverly fighting a proxy war in India, that too with Indian money, bleeding our financial system while spilling blood on the streets. The counterfeit currency smuggled in by air and land is handed over to local agents for distribution.
This money is used to finance terror-related activities and make payments to cadres of terrorist organizations and underworld outfits close to the ISI. According to the crime branch, small amounts of fake currency are smuggled in by Bangladeshi nationals through India’s porous eastern borders from places like Murshidabad and Bashirhat. The larger quantities arrive from Dubai, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Karachi and Kolkata.
The entire terrorist network is sustained using genuine currency acquired from within India. A key sector where intelligence and security officials believe that large amounts of fake currency have entered the system is the property market. Unless the property market is regulated it is very easy for an individual to pump a few lakh rupees into the official economy every few days. Many of the officials are now calling for immediate measures to flush out fake currency from the system. Random checks across India in currency chests and bank branches should be the first step. Simultaneously state governments have to put in place a system to curtail the movement of large amounts of cash into the system and from the system in the form of, say, property deals.
The amount of fake currency being pumped in overland has come down over the years. But the state is still to take strict action at sea. The Jhakhau and Mendhi stretches near Kutch are considered the most vulnerable sea routes. These counterfeit notes are hard to identify and come in handy for terrorists while arranging logistic like rented accommodation and vehicles for travel. The money is being pumped in from almost all over the country which is a big threat to the country and need to be checked.