THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though the recent arrest of three Al-Qaeda operatives from Ernakulam by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has come as a shocker for the state, the arrest of a Murshidabad native with counterfeit currency notes in 2016 had shed light on transnational unlawful activities in the state.
The state police’s investigation regarding the high quality counterfeit notes that were reportedly printed in Bangladesh hit a dead end after the accused — who was released on bail by a local court — was killed in a road accident at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam in 2018.
The Crime Branch progress report (accessed by TNIE) had then recommended an NIA investigation. Unfortunately, the case was not taken up by the central investigation agency. The progress report also pointed out several lapses from the side of the local police. A Murshidabad native, Sahadatt Hossain, was taken into custody on June 15, 2016 from a petrol pump after the `1,000 note he had given to the petrol bunk was suspected to be counterfeit.
It was later found out that the note was fake and in the subsequent raid the police had recovered 141 counterfeit notes in the denomination of `1,000 and 38 notes in the denomination of `500 from his place of stay. Sahadatt was then charged under Sections 15(1)(a), (iiia), 16(1)(b) of UAPA as all the suspected notes were of high quality as specified in the third schedule of the UAPA 1967 and amendment Act 2012.
In the investigation, the police found there was a large racket behind the counterfeit notes and then zeroed in on two West Bengal natives, Akram and Mintu.
When the police found transnational connections in the case, they had then recommended the case to be probed by the National Investigation Agency under Section 6 of the NIA Act in January 2017. However, the investigation team did not collect the details of the persons who arranged the bail for the accused, nor did it collect vital details from West Bengal in connection with the case, the report states. According to a senior police officer, the sleeper cells of the anti-national operatives were active in the state years ago. “Chances of migrants being lured into these rackets after landing in Kerala are also high,” he said.