Fifty-five-year-old Shahidunnisa, mother of Kamal Ahmed Ansari who was arrested in connection with the Mumbai blasts, is unable to remember the exact date when she first got an inkling that something was wrong with her son.

More than a year ago, someone had delivered a letter with just one line—‘‘Bhai ko bhejo, maal le jaaye’’

Shahidunnisa could not make out anything but she handed over the letter to his son, he left for Delhi in a day or two and went missing for around three months.

Later, a communication from the local police station said he was in Tihar jail. Police said that he was arrested for being involved in a counterfeit currency racket. He was in jail for less than a month and was back again in Basoppatti.

From Basopatti, it just takes a 45-minute motorcycle ride to Nepal’s Janakpur town, one of the many corridors which the ISI utilises to run its counterfeit currency racket in India according to the police. ‘‘Unemployed youths aspiring for easy money in the border villages become easy prey for ISI’s counterfeit currency drive run through the porous border with Nepal,’’ says Basopatti police station officer in-charge Ranjan Prasad Singh. Police and locals say Kamal used to very frequently visit Janakpur and come riding different kinds of motorbikes every time, which raised eyebrows as he was unemployed.

But the mother won’t believe the charges. ‘‘He is innocent. He has been trapped by our family rivals,’’ she said. Kamal, who dropped out of school after Class V, used to work in Delhi as a tailor but moved back to his village after his marriage 11 years ago. His house is in a slum inside the rural market. Police raids so far have yielded nothing. The mother says the explosive that Mumbai police claim to have recovered was cement.

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