The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Cellphones have helped in crime detection too

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 27, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Cellphones have helped in crime detection too

LAW &ORDER The alleged killer of an elderly woman in Sindhi Colony was traced on the basis of calls he had made from his mobile phone, writes K.V. Subramanya

THE ADVENT of mobile phone has not only made communication easy and fast but also helped the police in cracking some major crimes.

A look at some of the crimes detected by the city police in the past few years show that in many cases, where there were hardly any leads, the investigators succeeded in tracking the suspects on the basis of call details of mobile phones.

The latest of such cases was the arrest of a suspect in the murder of an elderly woman in Fraser Town police station limits. Manjunath alias Raju (18), who allegedly murdered Kaldevi Chandramani (78) in Sindhi Colony on August 16, was traced solely on the basis of calls he had made from his mobile phone.

The clueless police, who by chance got the mobile phone number of Manjunath, found that he had made several calls to a particular number at Muddenahalli in Arkalagud taluk of Hassan district. A police team that went to Muddenahalli gathered information about Manjunath and arrested him at Saligrama in K.R. Nagar taluk.

The sensational murder of realtor Subbaraju, who was shot dead at his office on Seshadripuram Main Road in Vyalikaval police station limits in January 2000, was also solved on the basis of the call details of a mobile phone.

The two sharpshooters from Mumbai who allegedly shot at Subbaraju, inadvertently dropped their mobile phone while escaping in an autorickshaw. It was the details of calls made from and to the mobile phone that gave the clue to the police that the Mumbai underworld had a role in the realtor's killing.

Even in the sensational murder of software engineer Girish, who was killed near the air-view point on Koramangala Ring Road, SMS that were sent to the "hired killers" mobile phone from that of Girish's fiancée, provided vitals leads to the investigators.

If the police were able to arrest the software engineer, who made an anonymous call that bombs had been planted at the office of IT major Wipro on Mahatma Gandhi Road, it was because of a mobile phone.

The engineer had called the mobile phone of a Wipro executive and told him that bombs were planted in the IT firm office. The telephone number of a coin-telephone booth, from which the hoax call was made, was displayed on the executive's mobile phone. On the basis of this telephone number, the police traced the engineer and arrested him.

There have also been instances where innocent people were put to inconvenience as the police wrongly suspected them on the basis of mobile call details. For instance, the police seized a mobile phone from a militant, Imam Ali, who along with his five accomplices, was shot dead in an encounter in M.S. Ramaiahnagar a few years ago.

One of the numbers to which some calls were made from the mobile phone was that of an RSS and BJP leader from Gulbarga. The police were shocked to find a "link" between the militant and the BJP leader.

However, investigation revealed that the BJP leader's son had surrendered his SIM card to the mobile service provider and Ali had taken the same number.

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