Mira-Bhayandar: Cops Traces Down 56 Stolen/Missing Phones Worth ₹10 Lakh; Returns To Rightful Owners

Mumbai: A total of 56 mobile phones that were either lost or stolen from people in the past couple of months were recovered and returned to the rightful owners by the Nallasopara police in the presence of DCP (Zone III)- Jayant Bajbale and senior police inspector- Vijay Singh Bagal on Thursday.

The collective value of the mobile phones which is pegged at more than Rs.10.71 lakh was recovered from various districts across Maharashtra and other states. Alarmed by the rise in the number of complaints related to stolen or lost phones, a special team was deputed to investigate the cases.

The team collected data of stolen/missing mobile phones by using the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal and traced the locations of handsets on the virtue of International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, supported by electronic surveillance.

The portal proved to be a crucial asset in tracing such devices across pan-India telecom networks. Citizens who had already given up hopes, were pleasantly surprised and happy when they got back their mobile phones which were either stolen or lost in-transit.

The CEIR is a citizen centric portal launched by the central government under the aegis of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to curtail the counterfeit mobile phone market, discourage mobile phone theft, misuse and for tracing the lost/stolen mobile devices.