The police has retrieved two smartphones that were stolen from a CL Block house in the dead of the night two months ago.
The theft had taken place on March 3 from the first floor of a CL Block house. The thief had climbed the pipe, walked in through the open veranda and roamed the flat before stealing two phones that were kept under pillows of two sleeping residents. A third phone that was plugged into the charger was taken too. The burglar also stole Rs 500 from a wallet.
“Within hours the thief then logged into my Facebook account on my stolen phone and started asking my friends for money over mobile wallets, claiming I was in trouble. One of my friends even sent him Rs 3,000,” said the resident, a media professional in his 30s. “He also started sending inappropriate messages and calls to my Facebook friends. I finally had to delete my account.”
Officers at Bidhannagar east police station got cracking and nabbed the thief. “We recognised his face from CCTV footage,” said an officer. “He is a repeat offender. We traced his movements over 115 CCTV cameras across the city and tracked him down to Ghutiari Sharif, in South 24-Parganas. We arrested him in about a week.”
It took longer to track the phones. While one phone is still missing, two were traced to Bangladesh, where they had got smuggled through the Canning border. The CL Block resident received the two phones on Sunday and found them in mint condition. “The smugglers had removed all scratches from the phones before reselling them but I knew they were ours as the IMEI numbers matched.”
The recovered phones
IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) is a unique number assigned to every phone. It usually comes mentioned in the phone’s box and can also be seen by dialing *#06# on the phone.
In the CL Block case, the resident did not have the IMEI number handy but the police still managed to find it out using their phone numbers. “I am very impressed by the police and am grateful to them for their hard work in retrieving the phones, said the resident.
Pickpocket at BJ Market
A septuagenarian had his pocket picked last week while shopping at BJ Market.
“My husband Kalyan Kumar Dasgupta was on his way to the grocery shop on May 9 when some young men bumped into him near the market’s staircase that wasn’t lit too well. It was only when he reached the shop and tried to pay that he realised his wallet was gone from his back pocket,” says a resident of AJ Block, requesting not to be named.
“Such incidents are known to happen on local trains and buses but we are shocked to see them happening in our own neighbourhood, that we deem safe,” added the lady.
A general diary has been filed with the Bidhannagar east police station. An officer there, as well as the secretary of BJ Market traders’ association, Subir Saha, said they did not know of any other such incident in the market.
“CCTV footage would, of course, have made the market safer but we do not have the funds for installation,” he said. “But if customers are finding a corner ill-lit, we shall look into it and enhance lighting there.”
Additional reporting by Sudeshna Banerjee