The network was being spearheaded by the temple priest Sadhu Radharaman Swami
Surat Crime Branch police busted a fake currency note printing racket on Sunday and arrested five people from different locations in Gujarat. The police also seized 5,013 fake notes of Indian currency with a face value of ₹ 1,00,26,000. The fake notes were being printed in a room of an under-construction temple ashram in Ambav village of Gujarat's Kheda district.
The accused are identified as Sadhu Radharaman Swami, Praveen Jeram Chopra -- a resident of Anand Vatika Society of Kamrej, Kalu Praveen Chopra, Pratik Dileep Chorwadia and Mohan Madhav Vaghurde -- a resident of Ankleshwar.
Pratik Chodwadia, one of the accused was arrested from a farmhouse near Kamrej on Saturday. The police recovered 203 fake notes of Rs 2,000 denomination from him. During his interrogation, he revealed the names of four others.
Based on his information, the police conducted a raid at a room in an under-construction Swaminarayan temple ashram in Ambav village of Kheda district and arrested the priest, identified as Swami Radharaman, they said, adding that fake notes of Rs 50 lakh face value were recovered from him.
DCP Surat Crime Branch, Rahul Patel said that the network was being spearheaded by the temple priest Sadhu Radharaman Swami. Under the garb of worshipping in the newly constructed temple, he was running this network. With the help of a screener and printer, Radharaman and his aides used to print fake notes with the denomination of ₹ 2000.
According to the police, Sadhu Radharaman Swami became a saint about 15-20 years ago. There are three sects of Swaminarayan -- Baps, Gajra Swaminarayan and Vartala Swaminarayan. The Vartala Swaminarayan sect had fired him about 18 to 20 years ago.
Besides that, no sect name was found outside the under-construction temple ashram. During further investigation, it was found that Radharaman had illegally occupied the land to construct the temple ashram.
All of them have been booked under IPC sections 489 (counterfeiting currency notes), 120 (b) (conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons towards common intent), police said.
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