MP: Man sentenced to life imprisonment for printing, circulating fake currency notes

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): 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 in the market 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, additional public prosecutor Hemant Rathore said.

The Indore crime branch team and Azad Nagar police had 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 the police recovered his laptop, pen drive, scanner cum printer, lens, and slide cutter, he said.

Rajratan had deposed before the court that he had lost his 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.

Azad Nagar police station in-charge Indresh Tripathi told PTI that Rajratan was an accused in two other cases registered at Khudel and Kanadiya police stations of Indore.

In one of the offences, Rajratan had sent attempted to extort Rs 50 lakh from former MLA Satyanarayan Patel by sending him a message on his mobile phone, while in the other case he had allegedly threatened and demanded Rs 25 lakh from an officer of the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA), the official said.