Friday, May 27 2005 09:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Pune: More than 1,000 people were involved in the illegal business of printing fake stamps and stamp papers in the country and the Government has so far not been able to nab them, according to Abdul Karim Telgi, prime accused in the multi-crore fake stamp paper case.

"There is a huge stock of such stamp papers but nothing is done to check its proliferation," Telgi told his lawyer Harshad Nimbalkar at Yerawada Central Prison in Pune. Telgi said his name was unnecessarily dragged into the case and added that the stamp papers and stamps seized by police in Mumbai had proved to be genuine following a test by the Forensic Science Laboratory test, Nimalkar told sources yesterday (May 26, 2005).

Telgi reiterated his fear that a high-level conspiracy was being hatched to eliminate him. Telgi said he did not feel safe in solitary confinement at Yerawada and had apprehensions about his safety.

Meanwhile, a five-member team of the State Human Rights Commission had visited the jail on May 21 to find out the conditions in which Telgi was held.

Telgi on May 18 had made an application to Chief Justice of Bombay High Court that he was a patient of HIV/AIDS, which was in its last stages, and was being illegally kept in solitary confinement in contravention of a Supreme Court ruling in a similar case.

Acting on a complaint by a reporter with the Human Rights Commission that Telgi was being mistreated and being kept in seclusion at the prison, the team met the prime accused.