Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy :
Few weeks back a piece of news regarding fake Indian rupee published in a national daily. It was published in a single column in the last page. Though the news was in a single column but it has a great implication on our economy and society. We know that counterfeit currency notes business is not a new trend in underworld arena. Since many years it is going on and innocent people are being cheated by many anti-social elements.
The news published in the newspapers that the counterfeit currency business is controlled by international mafia as it has regional connections. In south Asia the biggest economy is India. It seems the mafias take chances to produce fake Indian currencies outside Indian Territory and after that by any means they try to push it into Indian money market. The news was that bundles of Indian currencies were brought from Pakistan through Sri Lanka to Bangladesh. And a group of people are involved in this unauthorized transaction of these fake currencies. News report says four persons have been arrested by the DB police. Those four persons are lower level government servants, lawyer, and two other persons. It is certain that this picture is not apparently like this. It is definitely the tip of ice-berg of a big racketeer. And we can assume that many people are involved in this unethical business. It is very much astonishing that how all these consignments of fake Indian rupees came to Bangladesh bypassing Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi law-enforcing agencies and port custom authorities. It indicates that a big racketeer is working behind this whole episode. And deceivers are very active to make them unnoticed from the eye of the law-enforcing agencies and port custom authorities of these three countries. Otherwise it is very tough work for them. The news report says the dividends or profits of this business are sent to Pakistan. They are controlling and engineering the whole business.
The police of Bangladesh started drive against this racketeers and they were able to arrest four persons. They made this drive at Hazaribagh and Demra area and recovered 15 lac fake Indian currencies. Addl. Commissioner DMP AKM Hafiz made this statement in a media brief. After arresting four persons police produced them to the court and wanted ten days remand for interrogation. The unearthing of this incident indicates that there may be more persons and parties are involved in such type of unauthorized and unethical business. And many people are involved in these activities knowingly or unknowingly.
In different time common people of our country are being cheated by these activities. Not only foreign fake currencies are in the market but there are also fake Bangladesh currencies notes are also marketed in our country. At the time of Eid shopping and cattle markets these people usually make themselves very active. Law enforcing agencies have to keep strong vigilance to counter the evil doers and deceivers in different cattle markets in Bangladesh. Sometimes they can detect the counterfeit currencies by the devices they use. But it is assumed that always there might have strong chances of unnoticing the many such activities occurring in the cattle markets. In the Motijheel area a number of active informal currency businessmen are functioning. Usually expatriate people change their hard-earned money in this market for getting extra profit than banks. But many of them get cheated by this people. Usually they get some fake/counterfeit bank notes in bundles of money they receive from these informal businessmen in exchange of their foreign currency. But after noticing this they have nothing to do and generally they do not find the particular person with whom the sufferers made that deal. This is a common picture going on in Motijheel area.
So the law-enforcing agencies have to start vigorous drives against those unauthorized persons doing illegal foreign currency business. Many times we get news of fake currency business in the news media in Bangladesh. Apart from Dhaka the deceivers are also active in Chattogram, Khulna and other bordering districts in Bangladesh. Noticing all these incidents it seems deceivers are very much active in different places in Bangladesh. And they are maintaining a good network among themselves across the country. Maybe some of them have strong trans-national or regional connections. For their activities people are being cheated and at the same time their activities are pernicious to our economy.
In the forthcoming Eidul-fitar and Eidul-Azaha might be a big target of the deceivers for counterfeit currency notes transactions. In this arena the small cattle businessmen or cattle owners coming to different cattle markets are the prime sufferers of this counterfeit currencies. Targeting those people deceivers try to push the counterfeit notes into the markets and as a result of these acts the people who came to the cattle markets from the interior of the country get loser.
So the people arrested having bundles of counterfeit rupees should be tried in such a way that everyone can understand that these people are rightly served so that this trial must have a positive impact in our society. The law-enforcers should operate frequent drives to these racketeers across the country. In this way this sort of business might be reduced gradually and in future it must have a positive impact on our economy and people in the days to come.
(Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy
is former Civil Servant).
