New Delhi: The decision to demonetise higher denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will help pull out Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), whose face value is pegged at around Rs 400 crore by security experts, from circulation.
The Narendra Modi government's action will definitely deal a severe blow to the FICN rackets operating out of Pakistan as production of currency notes of smaller denomination will have logistical issues considering the large volume that would be required to pump them into India, say security experts dealing with terror financing and counterfeit currencies. According to the study, FICN of face value of Rs 70,000 crore was pumped in by Pakistani spy agency ISI and underworld gangs operating from outside India out of which only one-third could be detected by law enforcement agencies.
Now, after the fresh measure, the experts feel the counterfeit currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will either be destroyed by the racketeers or detected while being deposited in the banks.
Around 80 per cent of the FICN was routed to India through Bangladesh. The National Investigation Agency, India's anti-terror probe organisation has been engaging with its counterparts in Dhaka to crack down on gangs involved in the activity in that country, particularly at its airport and ports.
The other area that will be hit by the government's decision is the 'hawala channel' which was being extensively used by the ISI to finance terror networks.
The hawala operators would generally stock Rs 1000 and Rs 500 denomination notes because these were easy to handle due to lesser volume.
