Just two days after banks began issuing new "high security" 500 and 2,000 rupee notes, a farmer in Karnataka was cheated by a man with a photocopy of Rs. 2,000 note on Saturday.
Ashok, a farmer in Chikkamagaluru, had brought onion sacks from a nearby market. An unknown man, who purchased onions from him gave him a 2,000 rupee note claiming it was a valid new note issued by banks. Later, when Ashok showed it to his friends, it was found that the note was only a photocopy of the original currency note and it was trimmed at the edges.
"It was a photocopy of the original note... anybody can notice it easily. The person was given the copy by a man in APMC market," Superintendent of Police K. Annamalai said.
The new 500 and 2,000 rupee notes that Central Bank RBI is issuing starting from Friday are being called "high security" notes and have several new features to make them harder to fake than the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes that were scrapped from Tuesday midnight.
The new 2,000 rupee note, said the Reserve Bank or RBI in a statement, will include several features like a see-through register with the denominational numeral 2,000 which can be seen when the note is held up against light.
There will also be a latent image with the denominational numeral 2,000, which can be seen when the bank note is held at a 45 degree angle at the eye level.
The note will also have a colour-shifting windowed security thread with the inscription 'भारत', RBI and 2,000. The colour of the thread will change from green to blue when the note is tilted.
For the visually-impaired, there will a raised print of Mahatma Gandhi's portrait, the Ashoka Pillar emblem, bleed lines and identity marks.
The RBI said the 2,000 rupees notes have a motif of the Mangalayan, India's Mars mission and the base colour is magenta.
Tempers frayed as hundreds of thousands of people queued for hours outside banks for a third day to swap 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes after the notes were abolished earlier in the week.
Violence outside banks and ATMs was also reported in some parts of the country.
Nearly half of country's 202,000 ATMs were shut on Friday and those that operated quickly ran out of the new notes as scores of people descended upon them.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said ATMs had not been adjusted to handle new currency notes prior to the announcement in order to keep it under wraps. "Recalibration of ATMs will be completed within two weeks," he added.