Kumar Siddhartha, Pune
10 people, including two Samajwadi Party leaders, were arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district for allegedly smuggling counterfeit currency and illegal arms, said police officials on Tuesday. Investigators claimed that the gang was into land-grabbing too. Samajwadi Party district unit claimed its leaders were falsely implicated to damage the reputation of the party and sought a proper investigation.
Among those arrested were Mohammad Rafiq Khan alias Babloo Khan, national secretary of the Samajwadi Party’s Lohia Vahini and Naushad Khan, state general secretary of the party’s cultural wing, who both hailed from Kushinagar.Other detainees include Mohammad Rafiq Ansari, Aurangzeb (alias Laden), Sheikh Jamalludin, Nizammudin alias Munna, Rehan Khan alias Saddam, Hasim Khan, Sheraz and Parvez Illahi alias Kausar Afridi.
Four suspects – Jitendra Yadav from Bihar, Manish Kumar Singh alias Chottu, Kamruddin, and one whose identity could not be found, are still on the run, to which police have carried out continuous raids. Kushinagar SP Santosh Kumar Mishra confirmed that the investigation is underway. Police said they received inputs about a gang that used the India-Nepal border to smuggle counterfeit notes and arms. The information was passed on to the border police stations and the district cyber cell. The three men arrested on the tip-off led to the arrest of seven more.
Police have said that they had confiscated ‘shutokas’, worth Rs 5.62 lakh (Nepali rupees), 10 country-made arms and ammunition, a homemade bomb, 13 cellphones, eight laptops, two cars, Aadhaar cards, and SIM cards from the accused. Rs 1.10 lakh that the gang allegedly acquired through exchanges of fake notes was also seized.
Reports said Mohammad Rafiq Ansari, who is said to be the gang leader, already has 11 criminal cases against him and so do Aurangzeb and Parvez. Naushad and Sheikh Jamalludin have four cases against them. The police probe revealed that the gang was a pan-UP and Bihar operation – they used weapons to threaten people and snatch their land.
The police said they had garnered evidence that most of the accused are frequent visitors to Nepal to source the forged currency from there.
An official told The Indian Express that the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters Act will be invoked against the accused. Meanwhile, SP’s Kushinagar district president Mohammad Shukrullah Ansari alleged the police falsely implicated Rafiq Khan and Naushad Khan for malice. He further added that the party leadership in Lucknow has been informed about the development.