The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Police open database on lost mobile phones

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Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Police open database on lost mobile phones

K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD: Rattled by the increasing number of thefts of mobile phones in the twin cities and their inability to prevent them, police have hit upon a novel method to check at least the sale of the stolen mobile phones. And the effort seems to be paying dividends.

On an average, nearly 500 mobile phones are either stolen or lost due to contributory negligence of the people in the State capital. Realising that it would be next to impossible to prevent the theft or loss of mobiles, police have now begun maintaining a database of all the stolen/lost mobiles. The four-month-old database contains the International Mobile Equipment Identification (IMEI) or Electronic Serial Number (ESN) of the stolen / lost phones reported to the police. Using this database, police teams are fanning out to markets where second-hand mobile sets are sold at cheaper rates and are conducting random checks to verify the identification numbers. This exercise taken up at regular intervals has had a salutary effect and nearly 1,000 stolen or lost mobile sets have been recovered in the last four months.

Used mobile markets

Mostly, Jagdish Market in Abids and a couple of other markets in Secunderabad are the places where second-hand mobile sets are sold dirt cheap. The police are now planning to provide access to the stolen / lost mobile handset database to people through the city police website. Those buying a used mobile set can verify if the set was listed as stolen or lost.

“However, it is imperative that the mobile user note down the IMEI number or ESN so that it could be intimated to police if the set is lost or stolen”, R.S. Praveen Kumar, DCP, CCS said. Similar is the case with laptops or cameras. One should note the unique serial number, he said.

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