New Delhi: When a CRPF officer lost his phone while travelling on a bus in 2022, he had little hope of finding it again. Two years later, however, he was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from police informing him that his phone had been found. He is one of 555 people whose phones were traced and recovered by Shahdara police as part of their drive initiated in April.
The operation, termed ‘Operation Vishwas‘, was initiated by special commissioner of police Ravindra Yadav. A team comprising 35 policemen from 14 police stations of Shahdara district was formed. They diligently tracked the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers of the phones reported stolen. The cops tracked the phones using CDR (call detail records) and worked closely with govt’s CEIR (Central Equipment Identity Register) portal, which helped track 150 mobile phones. After checking the records and identifying when and where the phones were active, they maintained detailed reports and subsequently assigned ground teams to raid the traced locations and retrieve the phones.
“The team comprised two squads — one for the backend tracking operation and the other that conducted raids in far-off places in Bihar, eastern UP and other states where the stolen phones had been disposed of. Working on inputs from the backend teams, cops zeroed down on the locations and retrieved the phones,” said DCP (Shahdara) Prashant Priya Gautam.
Many of the phones were sold to unsuspecting users, who claimed to have bought them as second-hand or used devices, unaware that they were stolen property.
The first phase of the operation was carried out from April to July, during which 311 stolen mobile phones were recovered. The second phase, from Oct to Dec, resulted in the recovery of 244 stolen mobile phones. In total, 24 snatchers were arrested and 376 people were bound down to appear before a court or an investigating officer. The phones were retrieved from areas like Vivek Vihar, Anand Vihar, Jagatpuri, Gandhi Nagar and Krishna Nagar. Interestingly, police successfully linked each recovered phone to its corresponding FIRs registered in various police stations.
“We faced several challenges during the operation. During a raid in UP’s Bahraich, one suspect fled his home into agricultural fields. Our team followed him for about 5km through the fields before nabbing him and recovered the mobile phone. He was later bound down to appear before court,” said ASI Deepak Kumar from the technical team.
“In another instance, during recovery from a remote village of Bihar, the family of one offender created a ruckus, but with the help of the village sarpanch, the team managed to recover the mobile phone and bound down the accused,” Kumar added.
