7 held in connection with counterfeit stamp paper racket in UP's Gorakhpur

Seven people, including an 85-year-old mastermind and his grandson, were arrested in connection with a counterfeit stamp paper racket here, police on Saturday said.

Senior Superintendent of Police Gaurav Grover said the circulation of fake stamps had come to light about three months ago when a lawyer filed a case at the Cantonment police station.

It was found upon examination by the Indian Security Printing Press Laboratory in Nasik that several stamp papers being used were fake, he added.

The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) said the discovery of fake stamp papers being used in the Gorakhpur court proceedings led to the registration of a case at the Cantonment police station. It was found following a three-month probe that Qamruddin (85) from Siwan, Bihar, was a key figure in the racket, he added.

A raid was carried out in Siwan in which a cache of incriminating evidence, including a stamp paper, printing machine, counterfeit stamps valued at Rs 1.52 crore, non-judicial stamps from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar along with other materials used in the illicit operation were recovered, police said.

The SSP said the operation of the gang spanned across Bihar's Siwan with fake stamp papers being distributed not only in Gorakhpur but also in Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj and other parts of Uttar Pradesh and the involvement of vendors of these places.

Efforts to apprehend more suspects are currently underway, he added.

Among those arrested are Mohammad Qamruddin and his grandson Sahabzade from Siwan, Ram Lakhan Jaiswal from Gorakhpur's Kotwali area, Aish Mohammad and Ravindra Dikshit from Kushinagar, Santosh Gupta from Deoria and Nandu alias Nandalal from Kushinagar, the SSP said.

Qamruddin confessed during interrogation to learning the trade from his father-in-law decades ago, with his family engaging in the illicit stamp printing business for nearly half a century, police said. Despite a previous stint in jail in 1986, Qamruddin said that he resumed his criminal activities upon release, they said.

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