After seizure, storage of cash flummoxes cops

Kanpur: After making the biggest seizure of demonetised banknotes worth ₹100 crore, the Kanpur police have another tough task at hand – finding out a place to keep the currency?

All the police maalkhanas were found to be full and the maalkhana of district treasury refused help due to space constraint. The police are using a room in the Police Lines as a temporary arrangement to keep the money.

“We are working on a plan to keep the money safe. It is a case property and it will remain guarded,” said SSP, Kanpur, 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 day time. It took 12 hours, 80 men and 37 machines to count the banknotes. 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 trunks — all 4x6 feet in size —from Nai Sarak area.

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 declined the request as its storage facility was already brimming with goods. A few policemen suggested that the money should be handed over to the Kanpur branch of the 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, it was decided that the trunks would be kept in a guarded room of Police Lines till further arrangement.