NIA proves Pakistan link, six people convicted in fake-currency case

NEW DELHI: A special court in Mumbai on Wednesday convicted six people in a fake-currency case, accepting the National Investigation Agency’s argument that the notes were printed in Pakistan on paper similar to that used for making the Pakistani rupee.

According to an NIA official present at the special NIA court, the judge said the probe agency had proved beyond doubt that the fake currency notes were printed in Pakistan using high-quality machines that only a sovereign country can acquire.

The accused were arrested in 2009. The court didn’t announce the sentence on Wednesday.




The charge-sheet submitted by the agency had enclosed the opinion of a committee of experts from the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India that said the seized fake notes showed “most of the pivotal parameters” of the paper, such as GSM, wax pick quotient, poly vinyl alcohol, and PH value, were found matching used for printing the fake current and the Pakistani rupee matched. It also said the process of printing and paper making was also the same.

Security features of the genuine Indian currency notes have been almost perfectly copied in the seized fake notes “with the help of sophisticated machines which are available to sovereign nations and are manufactured by only two or three manufacturers,” the charge-sheet had said.

The NIA argued that Pakistan was the source of the fake currency and that the notes were sent to India in order to threaten the economic security of India. The agency examined 39 prosecution witnesses including members of expert committee to prove the case.

This is the first fake currency case investigated by the NIA where the accused are convicted. “The conviction would go a long way in curbing the terrorist act that threatens the monetary stability of India by circulation or smuggling of fake currency,” the NIA said in a statement.