The Counterfeit Capital

With the people of two countries living so cheek by jowl here,its not easy for the BSF to tell Bangladeshis from Indians. Mohabbatpur is so shapeless a neighbourhood that its impossible for an outsider to figure out where the border begins and where it ends. The gates on the fence open at specific hoursfour times a day,between 6 am and 6 pmwhen villagers on either side can cross over. Jamal Sheikh,11,who lives on the Bangladesh side,says,I used to go to a primary school on the other side of the fence in Mohabbatpur. I missed my classes often as the fence gates would be shut. I left that school and my mother admitted me to a madrasa at Zaminpur which falls in Bangladesh. His father was beaten up by the securitymen on charges of smuggling. What will we do for our livelihood if we dont ferry goods across the border? Jamal says,attesting to the fact that smuggling is the vocation of many villagers. There was a proposal to shift the villagers on the Bangladesh side to the Indian side. The villagers,for obvious reasons,resisted the rehabilitation and refused to give up their land and houses. For them,smuggling is no longer a lucrative breach of lawit has become a way of life.

If Churiantpurs geography edged it into this illicit trade,its economy pulled it deeper. Most of the villagers live below the poverty line. Many own cultivable land but it amounts to little as the fence hampers farming. Much of the cultivable land lies across the border and villagers can cross over and work in their fields for fixed hours. There are no significant education or employment opportunities. The panchayat has not undertaken any development work,nor has it given any work to villagers under NREGS ever since job cards were issued to them in 2009. Rabi Mondal,a 50-year-old villager who lives in the Dui Sata Bighi neighbourhood,says,My job card was issued in July 2009 but I have not got a days work. Ive been to the panchayat office several times asking for a job. Bhakti,a panchayat member of Dui Sata Bighi,says,We do not have enough funds to give jobs to villagers. Nor do we have any work to give them.

While the youth is dissatisfied with the present,the children in the village have little to look forward to. At the primary school in Dui Sata Bighi that has only four classes,there are 215 students but one teacher. The students turn up at the lunch hour for the midday meal and leave soon after. Since the meal is served only three days a week,most students dont bother to come on other days. Everyday,the lone teacher,Kishore Kumar Thakur,travels 40 km from Malda to Dui Sata Bighi,arriving around 2 pm. Sometimes,he teaches for about an hour in a classroom that rarely has more than 10 children. Health care is equally dismal. Villagers have to travel to Kaliachak town,some 40 km away,even for basic treatment.

With all that it lacks,Churiantpur is fertile for a crime that pays. Since there is little else to do,villagers start early. Some of the alleged couriers are as young as 10-year-old Kabir from Mohabbatpur who was arrested from Kaliachak. His mother,Sajenoor Biwi,says,My brother-in-law took Kabir with him,saying he would find a job for him that would fetch him at least Rs 1,000. But a few months ago,we came to know that Kabir along with his uncle was arrested and fake notes were seized from them.

While the couriers make 2 to 5 per cent on each consignment,profits are huge for those who run the trade. According to BSF sources,the kingpins get 50 per cent of the amount smuggled into India. Mobile phones have reduced the risk,giving smuggling a boost and attracting more people into the racket. The network of Grameenphone,a leading telecom operator in Bangladesh,spills over into the Indian side,making it easier for the smugglers to coordinate their activities on either side of the border. A senior BSF official says,There is no check on the network. This hampers our security. Most of the Indian couriers use these phones. The huge scale,sophisticated operation and involvement of foreigners have ensured that the police rarely get to lay hands on the kingpins. Those who get nabbed are couriers operating at several removes from the kingpin. The investigation invariably reaches a dead end, says a senior official of the Special Task Force of Kolkata police who is involved in FICN seizure. Even when we arrest the couriers,we are not able to reach the racketeers. At some point and after a few arrests,the chain breaks. The racketeers cannot be reached. The FICN trade has become so organised that the racketeers are able to keep themselves beyond the reach of security agencies most of the time.

Churiantpurs secret slide into smuggling of fake currency came to light in 1994 when the Malda police seized two fake 100 rupee notes and arrested two people from Kaliachak police station area. In the years that followed,the police frequently raided Churiantpur,seized fake notes and arrested villagers. That was the time when Pakistani terror groups were getting active,and the Pakistani spy agency,ISI,had started actively promoting anti-India activities. Churiantpurs geography made it accessible to smugglers; its poverty welcomed them. Since then,most big hauls of fake currency across India have borne the imprint of Churiantpur. Even though smuggling of fake currency had spread to other states such as Maharashtra,Gujarat,J&K and Uttar Pradesh a decade later, majority of the cases invariably led to Churiantpur.

In fact,it can even be said that smuggling of fake currency spread from Churiantpur to other parts of India. Even though villagers started migrating to big cities to work as construction labourers,many did not give up the native trade. Two years ago,the Mumbai police arrested 20-year-old Ibrahim Shiekh of Churiantpur in a fake currency case. Shiekh was a construction labourer. Two years ago,the police informed us that he had been arrested. Since then,we have not seen him nor heard from him. We dont have the money to go to Mumbai and fight his case, says his mother,Saika Biwi.

Whether its Mumbai,Delhi,Kashmir or Hyderabad,wherever any consignment of FICN is seized,the couriers most likely would have connections with Malda. In the absence of education and employment,the youth from this area migrate to cities across India where they usually work on construction sites,but also continue working as couriers, says a BSF official. In 2011,the amount of fake currency seized that had passed through Churiantpur soared to nearly Rs 1 crore. And this is the tip of the iceberg. Locals say that for every Rs 10 lakh of fake currency seized,another Rs 90 lakh go undetected. It was no wonder that the first chargesheet that the high-profile National Investigative Agency filed in the FICN case also led to Malda. In January 2011,the police seized Rs 1.5 lakh of fake currency along with two letterheads of the Hijbul Mujahideen from four youths at Janipur in Kashmir. The police found that the fake currency had travelled from Pakistan to Bangladesh to Malda and from there to J&K via Delhi!

Sources say major syndicate operators work in collusion with security agencies. Riyazul Sheikh (name changed),a 40-year-old from Mohabbatpur,figures as a racketeer in the report of an intelligence agency accessed by The Sunday Express. But he moves around freely in Mohabbatpur. I work for the BSF and the police, he claims. In his village,he is known as both the kingpin of a syndicate and an informer of the security agencies. His house indicates riches as it clearly sticks out among the little mud housesa neighbourhood where many are eager to take any way out of their desperate poverty.