Ernakulam: Team set up to probe fake income tax raid

KOCHI: The Ernakulam Rural police have constituted a 23-member team under SP K Karthick to investigate the incident in which a four-member gang posed as income tax department officials and took away 300 gram of gold and Rs 1.8 lakh from a house in Aluva on Sunday. 

The theft happened at the house of Sanjay, a Maharashtra native who has settled here and is engaged in jewellery work. The gang ‘raided’ the house for nearly one-and-a-half hours. After showing fake identity cards on their mobile phones to prove they were ‘income tax officers’, they asked Sanjay and other family members not to make phone calls and proceeded to seize gold ornaments. Sanjay’s wife and daughter too were in the house at the time. The police have collected CCTV footage, which has visuals of four people wearing masks, from the area, a police officer said. The Rural SP visited the spot to oversee the evidence collection.