Conman who posed as RAW agent has no terror links: Police

Kanpur, Nov 7: A conman who was arrested for posing as intelligence agent and civil servant to extort money from people, does not have any links with terror outfits or gangs, police said.

According to Kanpur SSP K Emanuel, after rigorous overnight interrogation the accused Ashutosh Tripathi revealed that he is a resident of Kanpur's Naubasta area and conned people posing as an IRS officer and RAW agent to extort money from them on the pretext of giving them government jobs.

Tripathi was interrogated by the officials of Military intelligence, Air Force intelligence and Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), after some maps, photographs and video of army camps were recovered from his possession, raising suspicion of him being associated with some terror cell, the SSP said.

The SSP said Tripathi faked identity to throw his weight around and con unsuspecting people. The other three persons-- Pushpendra Tiwari, Rajkumar Pandey and Dhirendra Singh-- who were accompanying Tripathi in his car were also interrogated and later released as they were found to be victims of his con act.

Besides the maps and photographs, a car with an army number plate and red beacon, an ATM card, laptop, printer, and a stamp with embossed national emblem was also recovered from his possession.

A case has been registered against Tripathi under relevant sections of the IPC and Motor Vehicle Act. Emanuel said Tripathi was arrested yesterday after he went to police control room and demanded the video recordings of main crossings of the city, posing as an intelligence officer.

The officials present in the control room said they were not aware of such thing and informed the SSP about him. Tripathi then went to the postmortem house and asked its authorities to give him the list of unidentified people those died in last six months.

In the meantime, a police team followed him and arrested him there. During interrogation, he said that he was a 2006-batch IRS officer posted at Lucknow. When contacted, the IRS department in Lucknow denied there was such officer working in the state capital, the SSP said.

When asked about the photographs, maps and video of an army camp, he revealed that his brother-in-law is an Armyman he had clicked photos and made a video when he visited him.

PTI