Former Crown Prince Paras Shah has refuted reports in Indian news media (and carried by some Nepali media) alleging him of being involved in fake Indian currency note racket in association with notorious underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Issuing a press release on Wednesday, Paras condemned the reports as 'false and malicious', adding that "it is a condemnable propaganda directed against the sovereign people of Nepal from a foreign land". "He further said he was seriously concerned with the 'fictitious and misleading' reports again appearing in the Indian media against him "which were intended to spread illusion in the minds of the Nepali people at large." Shah, who has been living mostly in Singapore since the fall of monarchy but is in Kathmandu after the reports surfaced, further said he has been "dragged into controversy taking advantage of the current fluid political situation in the country even though I have been leading a responsible and dutiful life as an ordinary Nepali citizen". The state should protect the rights of all Nepali citizens, including him, who are staying outside the country and suffers such misleading allegations, the statement reads. On Monday, some Indian newspapers claimed, based on the confessions of two Nepalis arrested with fake notes in India, that ex-prince Shah was behind the fake Indian currency racket. They also alleged his involvement with the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, and Mumbai underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim.