Mangaluru Commissioner of Police Kuldeep Kumar R Jain said that the city police have traced 240 stolen/lost mobile phones through Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal — www.ceir.gov.in — of the Union Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the city limits. Among the phones recovered, 93 have been handed over to the owners at a programme held at the Commissioner's office in Mangaluru on Saturday.
Jain said that 147 phones have already been returned back to the owners. He said that requests were sent for IMEI blocking of 2,133 lost mobile phones in Mangaluru city in the CEIR portal. Accordingly, 2,391 IMEIs (Some phones have two IMEIs) have been blocked so far. The police have received information on tracing 524 mobile phones.
He also said that the city police have also blocked the mobile phone numbers involved in cybercrime frauds through the CEIR portal so that fraud using the same number is prevented further. On a whole, the city police have requested blocking of 5,892 IMEIs in the city, he added.
The Commissioner said that Whatsapp Chatbot for registration of lost/stolen mobile phones introduced in the Mangaluru Commissionerate limits has received good response.
Elated after getting back his keypad mobilephone, Sukumar Shetty from Mannagudde said that he runs a fair-price shop and had 3,000 contacts of customers in the phone. He thanked the Commissioner for tracing his phone by handing over a flower bouquet.
Bindu, who had lost her mobile phone in April, was happy to receive it back. She said that she had lost her phone, purchased two years ago, in Jeppu.