BHOPAL: After New Delhi and Lucknow, currency notes lying unclaimed on the road triggered panic in the Hira Nagar area of Indore – a city which has emerged as one of the prime COVID-19 hotspots in the country.
The incident happened on Thursday afternoon near the Khatiwala Dharamshala under Hira Nagar police station area, when locals spotted currency notes in the denomination of Rs 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 lying unclaimed on the road.
According to police sources, the total value of the notes seized after sanitization amounts to Rs 6480.
“Our patrolling teams got to know about the development from local residents and rushed to the spot at around 12.30 pm. With no one claiming ownership of the notes strewn on the road, the cops first sanitized all the notes and then seized them for further investigation,” Hira Nagar police station in-charge Rajiv Singh Bhadoria told The New Indian Express.
“We’re scanning the CCTV grabs from cameras installed near the spot to find out whether the notes had accidentally slipped from someone or were deliberately thrown on the road,” Bhadoria said.
Last week, a similar incident had happened in New Delhi’s Rohini area where two notes of Rs 2000 denomination were found lying on the road in the market place. Another such incident took place in Paper Mill Colony in the UP capital Lucknow last week, when two Rs 500 notes were found lying on the road amid the lockdown.
People fear that the notes could have been deliberately thrown on the road to spread COVID-19.
Recent studies indicated that the virus, transmitted through droplets, could be passed on even from dry surfaces to humans. However, there is not enough scientific evidence on how long it survives on currency notes.