Guruvayur: The police have recovered the toy gun and cap used by a youth who had duped banks and cops as he masqueraded as an Indian Police Service (IPS) until his arrest recently. The 29-year-old youth, Vipin Karthik, had abandoned them among bushes on the roadside at Nellikkode in Kozhikode.
The fraudster claimed he had purchased the gun from a shop in Kochi. Notably, the letters ‘I-P-S’ are inscribed on the cap. Vipin said that he had abandoned the two items while shifting his residence from Guruvayur to Kozhikode.
Earlier, the police had seized the laptop used by Vipin to forge documents, 20 ATM cards, bank passbooks and cheque books from his rented house at West Hill in Kozhikode.
The fake IPS officer and his mother Syamala Venugopal, belonging to Kuniyil, Manalvattom at Tiruvangad in Thalassery, are facing charges of purchasing 10 cars and two bikes availing loans using forged documents from five banks in Guruvayur and later reselling the vehicles.
One car sold by the duo has been recovered from Kozhikode.
The police had on October 27 surrounded the house which Vipin had taken on rent and arrested his mother. However, Vipin who was also present in the house then managed to escape. He was later arrested from Chittur in Palakkad district on November 7.
The gun and cap were traced by a police team led by Temple SHO C Premanandakrishnan after obtaining Vipin in custody.
