With an extensive rise in the usage of mobile phones and digitization in the country, it has become quite impossible for people to live without it. A digital device, like a mobile phone, is pretty compact and has the possibility of being stolen or getting lost at any time. In a high populated country like India there, several cases of loss of phones get registered every day- but seldom are these found and returned to their owners.
But give it a thought: how does it feel if you when you get back your lost phone after losing hope of ever getting it back again. It is certainly a moment of surprise and happiness! A similar thing happened at Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district where 52 lost phones were recovered and returned to their owners. The initiative was taken under the supervision of IPS officer Sukirti Madhav, Superintendent of Police Shamli and a surveillance team set up by him.
THE PROCEDURE
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Madhav said “People occasionally forget their phones in public places or while moving around and in some cases, it is also stolen. After the phone goes missing, people come down to the police station to report. For a lost mobile phone, we register a missing case and if it is a theft case, we register an FIR.”
“After the case is registered, the mobile numbers are put on surveillance with the use of IMEI number by our surveillance team. This procedure is conducted to check whether the device is being used by someone with any other number and to get the location of the device. Such complaints are compiled police station-wise and are brought to the surveillance unit. The tracking of the device starts from there,” he added.
The surveillance team then figure out who is using the phone and who all are being contacted through it. After getting the location, the surveillance team reach and collect the phone. In the case of theft, the police focus on how did the thief got access of the mobile phone after which they try to crack the case.
RECOVERING MOBILE PHONES
After a lot of complaints were headed towards the SP’s office, Mr. Madhav took cognizance of the information related to lost phones in past one year and brought it to the surveillance team. After relentless effort of Mr. Madhav and surveillance team, 52 smart phones were recovered successfully which were worth Rs 10 lakh in the market.
Mr. Madhav said, “Many times the phones are operational at far off places, which requires time as the team needs to reach that location to recover the phone. Some of phones out of the total 52 were recovered from Haryana and Bihar.”
After the team recovered the missing phones, the Police Line in Shamli organized a program in which the phones were handed over to the owners by the SP. Mr. Madhav also announced a token reward of Rs. 10,000 to the surveillance team for showing relentless efforts. He also said that this drive for recovery of more missing phones will continue and the mobile owners will be called again for collecting the phones in a similar program.
Apart from this case, the Shamli police has also busted – under the supervision of Mr Madhav- four gangs who were involved in stealing mobile phones from their unsuspecting owners.
