Guess who comes to the 'rescue' of forensic scientists in identifying the genuineness of Indian currency notes? It is Mahatma Gandhi.
The portrait of the Father of Nation in the denominations of rupees 1,000, 500 and 100 has not been successfully forged by masterminds of counterfeit notes till date. And it is helping the scientist in identifying whether a currency note is genuine or fake.
"We are often encountered with the task of examination of huge fake currency notes. We do it with all security features available in the literature and manuals. But we have found that the features of the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in the denominations of rupees 1,000, 500 and 100 varied in a genuine and a fake currency note," director of Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata, CN Bhattacharya, said.
Gandhiji's portrait exist in currency notes of seven denominations ie Rs5, Rs10, Rs20, Rs50, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs1,000. However, counterfeiting has been observed in higher denominations like Rs1,000, 500 and 100.
Another forensic scientist with Kolkata CFSL, Sandip Patra, said, "We can say this after examining 436 number of suspected fake Indian currency notes in the higher denominations. Our observation can be added as a new security feature for identifying the genuineness of a note."
Investigating agencies, especially in the border states like West Bengal, have been facing challenges in dealing with the cases of counterfeit notes, Patra said.
"Since masterminds of counterfeiters use sophisticated equipment, a genuine and a fake note look alike. It poses a serious threat to the bankers and common people, involving bulk financial transactions of currency notes. In such cases, these features can be helpful to these bankers and also to investigating agencies," he said.
Bhattacharya said, "The findings are helping us and we are studying more features so that we could suggest to the RBI officials to include it as one of the security features to identify a fake currency note."
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