RAIPUR: All hope was not lost for Pankaj, a resident of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh, who yearned to get some clue that might help him to find his stolen smartphone. The phone was traced in the neighbouring district of Raigarh by the police.
Those experiencing pain of losing their cherished mobile phones now see light at the end of the tunnel as they are more likely to eventually get back their gadgets with the help of cops in the Bilaspur district.
Realising the distressing experience one gets on losing the mobile phone for whatsoever reasons, the Bilaspur police embarked upon an initiative -- Arpan, Ek Umeed -- that offers to track down the stolen/missing handsets.
“We were witnessing a consistent rise in the complaints of mobile phones lost or stolen, received by the police. Several hundreds of complaints were registered across various police stations of the district during the year 2020. We chalked out a mechanism to trace such phones and constituted a specially dedicated team of a cyber police cell for it," said Bilaspur SP Prashant Agrawal.
Interestingly, the percentage of recovery of lost or stolen mobile phones increased to well over 60% within a month of the launch of the drive and the results were quite encouraging for the police, he added.
Under the initiative, the cops would compile the relevant information about the missing mobile phones including technical details. The inputs would be gathered district and region-wise where the last location of the mobile phone was found.
The district police would then send an e-mail to the service providers/operators to ascertain if the unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number and the unique identity of each phone have been inactivated. Thereafter, the cops would make efforts to block or prevent mobile devices with duplicate and fake IMEIs with help of service providers.
Many mobile phones were also recovered from other states where the respective police stations contacted and the team from Bilaspur reached out to the area for inquiry and collected the handsets.
“Despite the police having its own priorities, such initiative is a good thing that emerged in our district. I was really concerned over someone likely to misuse my phone”, said Pushpa Girdhonia, a fashion designer, who lost her latest handset but got it traced later with the support of the police.