Daijiworld Media Network

Kanpur, Jan 17: Demonetised currency worth Rs 100 crore crore was seized from a house by the Uttar Pradesh police during a raid in Kanpur's Seesamau pocket.

The cash was in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, which were demonetised by the government in November 2016.

“The final amount is yet to be ascertained as the counting is underway. Upon receiving a tip-off, a raid was conducted by teams of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Income Tax (I-T) department officials. The department is interrogating the people involved, said AK Meena," senior superintendent of police (SSP) to the media.

Counting of the banned Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes is on and police said the total amount "could well cross the Rs 100 crore mark".

The big cache of banned notes was recovered from the house of Ashok Khatri, who has interests in real estate, after the National Investigative Agency (NIA) tipped off the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Income Tax department and the Uttar Pradesh police.

Sources say the money belongs to a group of businessmen based in NCR, Kanpur, Lucknow and some other prominent cities and that Khatri was a front who was trying to arrange to launder this money.

Police officials said that 16 persons have been arrested so far, including Khatri, and they were being questioned by various agencies to ascertain the source of the large amount of money.

Additional DG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said the arrested persons were trying to exchange the money with the new and valid currency. "All people who were acting as the go between have also been arrested," an official said.

With IANS Inputs