Gujarat anti-terrorism squad arrests 'contact man' for fake currency notes

Ahmedabad, Aug.13 (ANI): The anti-terrorism squad of Gujarat on Thursday claimed to have busted a fake currency racket with the arrest of a key operative on Thursday and recovered counterfeit notes with a face value of about 135,000 rupees from him.

Asghar Ali was arrested on Wednesday (Aug. 12) night, according to the ATS officials, he has links with Pakistan intelligence agencies.

"He remained in touch with the followers in Dubai and Pakistan and he was their contact man here on whose certification they used to get in touch with other individuals. And, those who want to get into FICN (Fake Indian Currency Notes) business, he was the contact man. He used to tell them from where they will get the fake Indian currency. And, he used to send that money though hawala transaction over to Dubai and Pakistan. Other investigations are going on,' said Ajay Tomar, Inspector General, Anti-Terrorism Squad, Gujarat.

ATS officials said that Ali was born in the Godhra region of Gujarat and then shifted to Pakistan with his family. He acquired a passport from Karachi in 1977. Subsequently, Ali moved to Dubai in 1984 and returned to Pakistan in 1986.

Ali then went to Bangladesh and managed to get citizenship of that country.

"In the year 2005, he went to Bangladesh. He created documents with the help of certain individuals there in Bangladesh and he became a Bangladeshi citizen, he got Bangladesh passport also went to Dubai and Pakistan again. In 2005, he got on the basis of fake document a passport, issued in his own name from Pune,"said Tomar.

Tomar added that Ali had created a network for pumping fake currency into the Indian market.

As per media reports, the ATS had busted an inter-state counterfeit racket last month and arrested four persons. Fake notes with a face value of one million rupees had been recovered then from different parts of Gujarat. (ANI)