Police recover over 500 phones, wallets of passengers from Odisha train accident site

BHUBANESWAR: More than 500 phones, including some damaged ones, 100 wallets and countless luggage have been recovered from the train accident site at Bahanaga in Balasore on Friday evening and Saturday, police sources said.
"We have kept all the belongings of passengers in our safe custody. Steps will be taken to identify the owners so that we can return those articles to them," Balasore SP Sagarika Nath told TOI.
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The SP denied reports of any theft of belongings from the accident site. "We have not come across any such theft. To prevent theft of articles of the injured and dead passengers from the accident site that was thronged by thousands of people, we have deployed adequate security personnel," Sagarika said.

"We have opened a temporary lost and found centre by assigning an inspector to ensure safety of the belongings of passengers strewn around the mangled coaches. We have found phones, wallets and luggage. No jewellery was found on the accident site," Sagarika said.

Police said the locals found many lost articles of the passengers and handed them over to police. “We are grateful to the locals, who not only carried out rescue operations, but also prevented theft of the passengers' belongings," Sagarika said.

Police said many young girls from the nearby villages picked up phones and other articles of passengers, who were being rescued and shifted to hospitals, and gave those to us. "The passengers were not in a condition to take care of their phones, wallets and luggage. The girls also fetched buckets of drinking water from their villages and distributed it among the injured passengers," the Balasore SP said.