Pathankot police hand over 200 cellphones to owners

The police played the ‘Good Samaritan’ much to the delight and joy of residents who had recently been claiming that cops were lax when it came to tracing lost mobile phones. The district police have recovered 200 such cellphones.

The police returned these mobile phones to their original owners at —“Phone Wapsi Diwas” — an aptly termed function. The groundwork was done by the technical wing of the police headed by Sub-Inspector (SI) Dilpreet Kaur Bhangu. These cellphones were stolen or snatched by petty criminals from streets in the city. Later, these were sold to other people at cheaper price.

Several cases of cellphone snatching had come to light following which SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon formed a special teams led by SI Dilpreet Bhangu to trace and nab accused. The teams, working on inputs provided by informers, were sent to different parts of the country. The police pegged the value of stolen cellphones at Rs 40 lakh. Missing reports were lodged with Saanjh Kendras spread across the district. As cellphones contained important data and vital information pertaining to victims, they were facing a lot of difficulty.

A resident, Vikas Kumar said, “I was travelling in a bus around three months ago when a person snatched my mobile phone. I thought that informing the police was an exercise in futility, but they proved me wrong when I received a call today to collect my mobile phone.”