After the seizure of demonetised currency notes worth Rs 100 crore in Kanpur, the Uttar Pradesh police now have another tough task at hand — to find a place to keep all the cash.
All the police maalkhanas (storage houses) were found to be full, and the maalkhana of the district treasury refused help due to space constraints. The police are temporarily keeping the money in a room in the Police Lines.
“We are working on a plan to keep the money safe. It is a case property and it will remain guarded,” said Kanpur SSP Akhilesh Kumar.
The seizure was made from a house in Swaroop Nagar area of Kanpur where the currency was neatly stacked in one of the rooms. The owner of the house Anand Khatri, who is also an accused in the case, had not been staying here. He had bought the house several years ago for one of his housing projects.
The lone guard outside the house did not get a whiff of the money which was always brought in bags during the day.
It took 12 hours, 80 men and 37 machines to count the notes.
After the counting was over, the officers realised they would require more than 200 sacks to accommodate the money. The bigger question was even if they were able to arrange for the sacks where would they keep it?
The policemen then brought five 4×6-feet trunks from Nai Sarak area.
Witnesses claimed the policemen did not pay the rickshaw-puller the promised fare of Rs 150 and sent him away after he offloaded the trunks. However, at the insistence of a police officer, a local resident gave him the money.
The trunks loaded with money were brought to the Police Lines where the officers went into a huddle to decide on a proper place of storage.
The treasury office was contacted but it curtly declined the request as its storage facility was already brimming with goods. A few policemen suggested that the money be handed over to the Kanpur branch of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) but a senior officer shot down the idea saying the bank would not accept demonetised currency as it was mere trash for it.
Later in the evening, it was decided that the trunks would be kept in a guarded room of Police Lines till further arrangement.
Source: HindustanTimes