The district police in Ranipet handed over 54 lost and found mobile phones to the owners here on Monday. Superintendent of Police Deepa Satyan distributed the phones worth ₹8.12 lakh to the owners.
In 2020, the district police handed over 50 mobile phones, mostly high-end smartphones, worth ₹6,47,500 to the owners. As per norms, missing phones are traced and returned to the owners once in six months in the district. However, due to the pandemic, the exercise got delayed. "People who had lost their mobile phones were very happy to get their phones back. Not just because of the price tag but such mobiles also contain a lot of data including family photographs," said Ms. Satyan.
A two-member team, comprising constables Raj Kumar and Aishwariya, of the district cyber crime cell, traced the missing phones for which complaints had been filed in all 18 police stations in the district. The cyber crime team, led by Muthukaruppan, Additional SP (Ranipet), keeps monitoring missing mobile phone handsets through their IMEI number at periodical intervals. Lost phones were tracked using IMEI numbers.
In Ranipet, most of the missing phones that were handed over to the owners on Monday belonged to travellers, mainly from Chennai and Tiruvannamalai. Meanwhile, the district police in Tiruvannamalai auctioned 365 seized vehicles, mostly two-wheelers, in the parade ground at the SP office on Monday.
