Nagpur: Sohel Singh Thakur, a 24-year-old private company employee, was in disbelief when Kapil Nagar police station called him to inform him that his mobile phone lost four years ago had been found in West Bengal and would be handed over to him. Sohel had lost the phone while returning to Nagpur from Mumbai on a train in March 2022 and had filed a missing complaint at the local police station.On Sept 12, Sohel was one of the 60 recipients of recovered mobile phones which Kapil Nagar police handed over to complainants as a symbolic gift before Ganeshotsav. Police had recovered the phones from thieves or traced them after being misplaced.Sohel was ecstatic, though initially he feared the police call to be a digital arrest scam. Kapil Nagar police cyber cell had tracked the device after blocking it through the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal. Earlier this year, Siliguri police in West Bengal traced the phone to a man’s house — he could not use it because it was blocked — and couriered it to head constable Deven Kale, who was coordinating the complaint.Chhabi Chowdhury, an elderly domestic help, was another beneficiary of the police initiative. Chowdhury’s drunkard son had sold her phone for purchasing liquor in Mhada Colony. Within a month and a half of her complaint, police traced it to Kamptee and recovered it.Another beneficiary, a student named Aditi Vasnik, had stored academic data in the mobile handset. The student had been left distressed after the phone was misplaced.Additional CP Vinita Sahu, zonal DCP Ganesh Dhumal, and others handed over the phones to their rightful owners. Senior inspector Satish Ade said the gesture was meant to spread happiness before the festival and rebuild citizens’ trust, “since phones contain students’ data, elderly people’s memories, and everyone’s daily communication”.
