Pramesh S Jain
City Police Commissioner,Seemant Kumar Singh on Wednesday urged members of the general public to exercise caution while purchasing second-hand mobile phones without proper documentation, warning that such transactions could lead to both financial and legal trouble.
Addressing a press conference to announce the cracking down of various wings which recovered a total of 1949 mobile phones which were robbed stolen and lost from the last one and half months.
Elaborating on the crack down,Mr.Singh said that the officials of the Command Centre track down total of 894 stolen and lost mobile phones through the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal,which helps track devices using their IMEI numbers.
Once the IMEI of a lost or stolen phone is uploaded to the portal,an alert is triggered whenever the device is switched on with any SIM card,allowing police to identify and contact the user to recover the handset.
According to officials,most of those found in possession of stolen phones had unknowingly bought them from second-hand sellers. Of the total phones traced,765 were recovered in Bengaluru and 129 in other districts, police said.The officials have returned 522 mobile phones while trying to trace the owners of the remaining phones .
Mr.Singh appreciating the efforts of the command centre staff,said that buyers of undocumented phones often lose both their money and the device—the money goes to the thieves,while the phones are seized by the police once identified as stolen.
In a similar operation,officials of the Central Crime Branch have arrested a six members mobile snatching gang and seized 450 mobile phones from them.
The accused have been identified as Arbaz, Chandrashekar,Afroz, Madan,Shanthakumar,and Mohammed Yasin.
According to the police,the gang used to target pedestrians moving around the market area and snatch mobile phones while riding bikes and also stole phones from passengers inside buses.
Initially cases were registered at the City Market Police Station and later transferred to the CCB considering the gravity of the cases .
The accused would disposed the robbed and stolen phones at grey market for throwaway prices and used the money for vices .
