Google Maps helps engineer recover father’s stolen mobile phone in Nagercoil

The phone was trackable as it had the ‘location sharing’ turned on and was not switched off after the theft

An engineer using Google Maps managed to trace and recover in a few hours his father’s mobile phone, which had been stolen during a train journey.

Palaniswami, a retired BSNL employee and father of P. Raj Bhagat, a Nagercoil-based civil engineer, and his friend were travelling from Nagercoil to Tiruchi by Nagercoil-Kacheguda Express. They had boarded the train at 1.43 a.m. at Nagercoil Junction, and the coaches were relatively empty.

At 3.51 a.m., Mr. Palaniswami realised that his bag and mobile phone had been stolen. He searched the train and called his son with his friend’s phone to inform his family of the theft.

Mr. Raj Bhagat said: “Luckily, we have ‘location sharing’ on among immediate family members, which meant I could track the location of my father’s mobile. When I checked it, I realised that the phone was moving along the track near Melapalayam in Tirunelveli, so I realised that the thief was returning to Nagercoil on another train.”

Mr. Raj Bhagat and his friend Babin went to the Nagercoil railway station and sought the assistance of the Government Railway Police (GRP) to catch the thief.

He said: “Using Google maps, I confirmed that the thief was still in possession of my father’s phone on the moving train. He arrived at the station on Kanniyakumari Express, which was heavily crowded. We lost him in the crowd, but I was still able to track his location thanks to my father’s phone. Based on his movements, we learned that he had exited the station through the main gate and boarded a local bus. So, we started our chase on a bike.”

He said that after two to three minutes, Google Maps gave him a location that was accurate by up to 2 m. “My friend and I confronted the suspect at the bus stand, and with the help of the public, recovered my father’s phone and bag. The suspect was handed over to the local police.”

“I was lucky that the thief didn’t turn off the phone throughout the entire journey. Many of you might not like sharing your location, which is understandable, but today, it helped me,” Mr. Raj Bhagat added.