On February 12, as Sunil Rajendra Tiwari (35) stood waiting for his train at the Andheri railway station, he received a call that he had once anxiously waited for. The Government Railway Police (GRP) called to tell him that his Samsung J7 phone, which was stolen from him in a local train in 2018 during his commute to work, had been located. “I was sure I wouldn’t see my phone again. It was a present from my wife and it was very valuable to me,” said Tiwari whose phone went missing at Andheri station four years ago.
Tiwari’s relief is due to the special drive launched by the GRP six months ago to locate stolen and missing phones of commuters of local suburban trains. In October 2021, the GRP formed special teams comprising a police inspector, two sub-inspectors and three constables of the GRP crime branch, to recover phones even if that takes them to different states. According to the GRP commissioner Quiser Khaleed, a special fund of ₹15 lakh (from the investigation fund allotted to the GRP by the state) has been allocated for this drive. The results are already visible: Since the drive started till March-end, 4,474 mobiles have been located. By comparison, 968 mobile phones were recovered between October 2019 and March 2020.
