The district police in Vellore have handed over 60 lost and found mobile phones to the owners on Thursday with the Superintendent of Police (SP), S. Rajesh Kannan, distributing the handsets worth around ₹9 lakh that were recovered by the Vellore district cyber crime police to the owners. Thursday’s initiative comes after an year since the formation of a dedicated Cyber Crime police station at the SP office in Vellore. As per norms, such missing phones are traced and returned to the owners once in six months in the district by the respective police stations prior to the formation of the cyber crime cell. However, due to the pandemic, the gesture took considerable time. “Owners of the lost mobiles are from various places including Bengaluru, Chennai, Tiruvannamalai and Kerala. Most of them are travellers. Complaints were related to lost mobile phones for the past three months,” the SP said. A five-member team led by Deputy SP Boopathi Rajan, who is also in-charge of the crime unit in the district police, of the Cyber Crime police station, traced the missing phones for which complaints had been filed. The cyber crime team has been monitoring the missing mobile phone handsets through their IMEI number at periodical intervals. Lost phones were tracked using IMEI numbers. On the occasion, Mr. Rajesh Kannan urged the owners, who received their lost mobile phones, to install the recently launched ‘Kaaval Uthavi’ (police assistance) app in their mobiles. The app, which was launched by the Chief Minister at the Secretariat a few days ago, has over 60 features to enable the public, especially women, to seek police help in case of emergency. The app comprises emergency help and a dial facility (Dial-112/100/101). It also has a facility for mobile-based complaints and location sharing. Other features include Police Station Locator, Control Room Directory, Cyber Financial Related Complaint, Other Emergency Helplines, Alert / Notification messages, Vehicle Verification, e-payment of fines for traffic violations, Police Verification Services), Lost Document Report, TN Police Citizen App and 112-India App among others, the SP said.
