Mumbai, December 1
Close on the heels of multi-million rupee fake stamp scandal that is rocking the country, a television channel has uncovered currency notes and stamps from different countries from a house in Nashik.

Zee Television, in a scoop telecast today evening, showed its crew breaking into the locked house of a person arrested for peddling fake stamps. Its reporter Yogesh Khare and cameraman entered the house of Prasun Agrawal, alias Abhay Bansal, in Nashik town from a window and uncovered several packed cases containing currency notes and stamps belonging to Zambia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Netherlands and other countries.

The channel said none of the police officials in Maharashtra was aware of what was going on in the locked house. As of now, it is not clear if the stamps, currencies and other papers were legitimate, fake or stolen from the Nashik printing press located in the same town.

Police officials from Nashik were still unaware of the television story when contacted by IANS. However, sources from Nashik say, currency notes and stamps belonging to different countries are printed at the government printing press located in the town. For instance, the provincial Iraqi government had almost finalised printing of the new Iraqi currency at the press, but the contract was given to another country at the last minute.

According to the Nashik police, four persons including Bansal, alias Agrawal, were arrested last week. Agrawal and his brother Pranay Agrawal were wanted for selling fake franking machines and stamps more than a year ago. A case was registered against them by the Versova police in suburban Mumbai.

However they were absconding and had moved to Nashik, near the government printing press, to restart their business.

They were operating from Nashik. The police said, the main kingpin Prasoon had changed his name to Abhay Bansal to avoid detection.

From their house, the police had seized computers, stamps etc valued at Rs 7.2 million. However, it is not clear if the television scoop featured the raided house or another premises owned by the brothers.