Pune: The Wakad police on Saturday returned 120 mobile handsets worth Rs 20 lakh, which were stolen or misplaced from the Wakad area in the last three months, to their owners. The police team, led by Senior Inspector Nivrutti Kolhatkar, tracked the handsets with the help of the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal and contacted the persons who were currently using them. The handsets were recovered from different districts in the state and other states in the country.
Deputy commissioner of police (Zone-II) Vishal Gaikwad of the Pimpri Chinchwad police said that Pimpri Chinchwad police commissioner Vinoy Kumar Choubey issued directives to all police stations to form teams to trace missing or stolen cellphones and return them to the owners. An officer from the Wakad police said that the complaint of a missing or stolen mobile handset is also shared with the CEIR portal, through which the stolen mobile handsets can be traced. "After tracing the location, the portal automatically blocked that cellphone," the officer said.
He said that after getting the location and the address of the cellphone's current users, the police team contacted them. "We informed them that they were using stolen mobile handsets and requested them to return them. Those who did not agree were told to face legal action," he said.
Rashmi Birangal was among the 120 happy residents from Wakad, who got their stolen mobile hansets back on Saturday. "When my handset was stolen, many of my relatives an.
