ANANTAPUR: Anantapur district police stood first among all police units in the State in recovering the highest number of lost/stolen mobile phones using the chatbot service, district police superintendent of police (SP) Fakeerappa Kaginelli announced on Sunday.“The department was able to recover 6,026 lost/stolen mobile phones worth Rs 9.75 crore and handed them over to the owners in a period of nine months,” he added.
The SP handed over another 382 mobile phones to their respective owners on Sunday. Stating that the district police department had initially launched the WhatsApp number 9440796812 on March 17, 2022, the SP explained that the service enabled complainants to lodge an FIR regarding their lost/stolen phones without having to visit the police station. Further, a chatbot service was launched on June 26 2022, to expedite process of reporting the loss of mobile phones and tracing them, he added.
Revealing information on the mobile phones recovered so far, the police officer said the department was able to trace around 476 mobile phones belonging to users from 15 States. Majority of the mobile phones belonged to users from Karnataka (221), followed by Telangana (130). SP Fakeerappa explained that the department had traced 5,550 mobile phones belonging to users from 18 districts in AP.