Rly cops recover 217 lost mobile phones

Vadodara: With chances of recovery almost nil, a cellphone lost in transit on a train is as good as gone forever. And so had these passengers felt after losing their mobilephones months ago. Little did think they would get their handsets back again one day. But thanks to government railway police’s (GRP) efforts, 217 passengers got back their phones lost in different trains. The value of recovery by the GRP from various states is pegged at Rs 17.21 lakh.
According to the police, hundreds of passengers flood them with complaints about cellphones either getting stolen or misplaced during their train journeys. Complaints came in from Vadodara, Vapi, Valsad, Surat, Bharuch, Godhra, Anand and Nadiad railway stations frequently. “We formed four different teams to track these lost phones on basis of the IMEI numbers,” GRP officials said.

Most of the phones are found to be switched off for some time immediately after they were lost, but no sooner they are switched on again, cops trace them to various states including West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and cities in Gujarat. The police said often its ‘finders keepers’ for the lost handsets, or used by persons who purchase them for discounted rates, adding that not much action can be taken against those persons who keep the ‘lost and found’ phones. “Passengers often forget their phones either on the train or on railway station platform. While some of these lost phones ‘find their way’ to the help desk through genuine persons, most are not returned,” the police said.

The GRP’s local crime branch (DCB) had conducted a similar operation for two months last year. Sleuths tracked down 105 mobile phones worth Rs 12.44 lakh lost from Ahmedabad, Godhra, Dahod, Surat, Anand and Kheda. GRP officials said they conduct such operations to trace valuables and phones lost by the passengers after a gap of a few months.