Puri police to courier recovered mobile phones back to tourists

Bhubaneswar: Next time if you lose your cell phone while on holiday in Puri, fret not for you’ll get it back via courier, thanks to a new initiative by the Puri police where seized stolen phones are returned to the tourists via courier.
On Tuesday, Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh organised a ‘mobile mela’ where the police officials made video calls to the tourists and informed them that their stolen phones will be returned via courier.
“We realised the inconvenience that the tourists will be facing if we ask them to come back to Puri to collect their phones. Instead, we started the process of sending the phones to their homes via courier,” Singh said, adding, “The tourists thanked us for launching the initiative.”
The recovered phones, most of which were stolen from Jagannath temple and the Puri beach, will be sent in phases to the tourists.
The Puri police had set up a crime prevention and detection cell to catch those who were involved in property-related offences like theft and snatching.
“We then deployed police personnel in civilian clothes inside Jagannath temple and on the beach and we could catch hold of a few thieves, who belonged to interstate gangs. Upon interrogation, they confessed to stealing cell phones and subsequently, we recovered over 100 phones,” Singh said.
While the bulk of the seized phones belonged to Puri residents, 30 of them belonged to tourists from West Bengal, Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“Countless tourists from across the country and abroad lose their phones in Puri every year, with little hope of ever getting them back. Thus, when I lost my phone three months ago, I never expected that I would receive a call from the Puri police, telling me that my stolen phone will be couriered to my home,” Bikram Das, a tourist from Assam, said.
Singh added that their special drive to recover the stolen phones will continue.