Mumbai cop spots lost expensive mobile phone while regulating traffic near Gateway of India, traces its owner

The traffic police officials returned the mobile phone to its owner on Saturday. Pic/sources

Mumbai Traffic Police officials while regulating the traffic near the Gateway of India in south Mumbai on Saturday went an extra mile to trace the owner of an expensive mobile phone after finding a lost cell phone that had been misplaced by its owner near a heavily crowded footpath in Colaba.

According to an official, on Saturday, at around 6 pm, Assistant Police Inspector (API) Sudhir Rathod while regulating the traffic near hotel Taj in Colaba spotted a mobile phone, he then decided to check the phone and trace its owner. In the meantime, two other officials- PSI Pramod Mundhre and PI Deshmukh too decided to trace the phone's owner.

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He added, the officials then traced the owner, a woman who had accidentally dropped the mobile phone valuing around Rs 42,000. They contacted the woman, who was around the area and called her near the same spot where the phone was found. After verifying the ownership of the phone, they handed it over to the woman, who was later extremely thankful to the cops for helping her.

Meanwhile, In July, the MIDC police in Mumbai had traced and recovered at least 100 mobile phones which were either lost or stolen during 2022-23, from different cities and states, an official had earlier said.

The MIDC police station, located in Andheri (east), has jurisdiction over industrial units in the area.

These phones were recovered from Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and other places, and returned to their owners who had lodged complaints, the official said.

"Earlier, 350 mobile phones, reported missing from January to May this year, were returned to their owners. A special team was formed to trace these phones," the official had added.

In May, the Police in Maharashtra's Thane city had returned 711 mobile phones worth nearly Rs 1.28 crore that had been either stolen or lost to their owners, an official had earlier said.

The devices were traced between January and April and police made the use of the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR), said the official.

CEIR is a portal of the Department of Telecommunications to trace lost or stolen mobile devices. It also facilitates blocking of such phones.