The Telangana police on Monday booked two men on the charge of circulating coloured photocopies of the new Rs 2,000 note in the state’s Mahabubabad district. A man identified as Pradip and the owner of a photocopy centre in the district’s Kuravi mandal have been booked under the Indian Penal code for cheating and possessing forged or counterfeit currency.
Mahabubabad Rural Circle Inspector Krishna Reddy told PTI that while they are questioning Pradip, the owner of the photocopy centre is absconding. The case was filed on Sunday after employees at a fuel station lodged a complaint saying Pradip had paid them with a suspicious note. Pradip had gone to the petrol pump on Sunday evening to refuel his relative’s motorcycle. He had bought petrol worth Rs 500 and paid them with a coloured photocopy of the new Rs 2,000 note, they said.
According to Reddy, the owner of the photocopy centre had made four copies of the new note and given one to Pradip, asking him to use it in the market. “The man who was running the photocopy centre allegedly told Pradip that they can earn easy money by exchanging the copies of the new Rs 2,000 notes,” the inspector told PTI.
The first case of a counterfeit Rs 2,000 note was reported from Karnataka on Saturday when a vegetable vendor was duped with it. The perpetrators have not been identified yet.
The new Rs 2,000 note was introduced on Thursday, two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would be demonetised. The government had claimed the move would help bring down the number of counterfeit notes in circulation. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has faced tremendous flak from Opposition parties since it made its announcement.
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