MP man gets life for printing fake currency

INDORE: A court in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore has sentenced a 26-year-old man to life imprisonment for printing fake currency notes and circulating them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fourth additional sessions judge Jaideep Singh on Saturday sentenced Rajratan Tayde to life imprisonment, following which the convict was sent to the central jail, said additional public prosecutor Hemant Rathore.

The Indore crime branch team and Azad Nagar police arrested Rajratan while he was waiting for a customer near Bhandari bridge to hand over a consignment of fake currency notes on June 9, 2021, he said. The accused was found with a bag containing notes of Rs 100 denomination worth Rs 2.53 lakh, Rathore said.

The accused was taken to his rented house in Azad Nagar, where police recovered laptop, pen drive, scanner cum printer, lens, and slide cutter, he said.

Rajratan had deposed before the court that he had lost job during the pandemic. He then came across a video about making of fake currency notes on YouTube.

The accused bought the necessary equipment and practiced note printing for 20 days before finally coming out with fake currency, Rathore said.

Police said Rajratan was an accused in two other cases. In one of the offences, Rajratan attempted to extort Rs 50 lakh from former MLA Satyanarayan Patel, while in the other case he had allegedly threatened and demanded Rs 25 lakh from a public servant.