india

Updated: Nov 10, 2016 23:29 IST

Shredded currency notes with a face value of several lakh rupees were recovered from a busy area of Bareilly in northwest Uttar Pradesh, police said on Thursday.

Found mostly burnt in two sacks near a dump-yard in CB Ganj on Wednesday afternoon, the finely-cut notes “resemble” those in the denominations of the just-invalidated Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, according to a senior official.

Effort was on to conclude if the notes were fake or real, Bareilly SP Sameer Saurabh told HT. A probe is also on to find whether the note-shreds were part of a consignment that was sought to be disposed of, added another police source.

No case has been filed on the matter that was noticed 18 hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of invalidation of currency notes of rupees 1,000 and 500 denominations.

Local people said the currency was filled in two sacks and set on fire, while authorities said they were trying to ascertain the exact amount of the old high-denomination notes recovered around 2 pm by the road that leads to a national highway linking Bareilly to Haridwar in neighbouring Uttarakhand.

Police officials said the shreds were so fine that it was difficult to ascertain if the currency notes were original. “We have collected a sample of the shreds for investigation,” SP Saurabh said.

Police maintained that the shreds weighed “not more than a few kilograms”, but CB Ganj residents claimed otherwise. “There was over 20 kg of note-shreds,” said Dinesh Gangwar, who lives in the pocket. “Children took away much of it before the police arrived.”

A police sources spoke of the possibility of the sacks having fallen off a vehicle carrying more such note-shreds out of the city. CB Ganj is close to the Bareilly-Haridwar NH 74.

Senior police officials, including the SP and the SSP, visited the place.