The S.J. Park police have unearthed a fake stamp paper racket which was allegedly being run for several years at the City Civil Court complex on K.G. Road, close to the police headquarters. Four people have been arrested in connection with the racket — the main accused, Hussain Modi Babu, 53, and three typists and stamp paper vendors who worked at the court complex, Harish, 55, Shahwar, 42, and Najma, 35.
The police on Saturday announced that they arrested Babu a few days ago while he was handing over a bundle of fake stamp papers to Harish. Based on their confession, a police team raided the city court complex and arrested Shahwar and Najma. “The typists would buy fake stamp papers that Babu made at half the price and sell it to people at the court complex,” said a senior police officer.
Another team raided Babu’s house in Vivek Nagar, where they seized a computer, colour printers, and fake seals of the Shivajinagar and Bommanahalli sub-registrar offices. “We recovered a large stack of fake stamp papers of face value running into several lakhs of rupees,” the officer added. Babu allegedly confessed that he used plain A4-sized paper to print stamp paper and faked the franking and embossing process using a different software. The accused used to print stamp paper of different denominations depending on the demand.
Incidentally, Babu, who was called Chhota Telgi, had been arrested in 2013 for a similar offence, but managed to make bail. “Once on bail, he continued with the racket with the help of his associates who were working as typists and stamp vendors at the court complex,” N. Anucheth, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Division, said.
Babu is a high school dropout who worked as a tout assisting people in framing rental agreements and other official work. “As stamp papers are in great demand in the grey market, he decided to print and sell them. He teamed up with Harish, who worked as a typist at the court complex, offering to sell him stamp papers at half the price. Later, the two other accused, both college dropouts and working as typists and stamp paper vendors at the court complex, also joined Babu and bought stamp papers from him,” said another senior police officer.