Mobile lifting rampant in Delhi

When Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party’s heir apparent, found that his cell phone was stolen, the cops recovered it even before a formal complaint could be lodged.

But for the aam janta, losing a cell phone could mean never getting it back again. In the past year, 4456 mobile theft complaints were reported in Delhi alone. However, out of these, only 3760 cell phone thefts were formally registered for by the owners of the phones.

Statistics reveal that 83% of the cases registered were not successfully solved by the Delhi police.

Information conveyed in response to a Right to Information application reveals one silver lining though - the Delhi police were able to trace 1566 missing cell phones in the last one year, but most of these were from cases registered in previous years, some even going as far back as seven years.

The upcoming Commonwealth Games could be boom-time for cell phone lifters, who can expect to get away with it too as data shows that the Delhi police do not have a track record that would deter the thieves.

Places of transport like railway and metro stations/trains are a happy hunting ground for the lifters, but the Indira Gandhi international airport is safe. Only 14 cell phone thefts have been reported from the airports, whereas there have been 197 complaints lodged with the railway police.

The RTI reply reveals that cell phone theft cases have been reported almost in every police station of Delhi.

The north district had the highest number of cases, at 2163, and the lowest recovery rate at 9.7%. The south west district fared the best in terms of recovery at 46.6%. Interestingly, some of the cell phones stolen from Delhi were recovered in other cities as well.

But given the state of affairs surrounding the Games, neither chief minister Shiela Dixit nor the police chief YS Dadwal are likely to lose sleep over the loss of mobile phones, with a host of other problems crowding their agenda right now.