CISF personnel at Delhi airport track Austrian with photo in smart watch to return gadget

The incident took place in the security hold area of the departure Terminal 1D of the IGI airport, which sees a daily footfall of more than 20,000

When two officers from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) tapped on Austrian national Peter Resele’s shoulder at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi, he thought he was in trouble. To his surprise, they handed over to him his smart watch which he had forgotten to collect after security check.

CISF security personnel during the security check at IGI Airport T3 in New Delhi. (HT File Photo)

What amazed Resele the most was how the security personnel tracked him down inside the terminal, which was through a family photo in the background display on the home screen of his watch.

Elated to get his watch back, Resele attempted to tip the two personnel but they refused to accept any money. Resele then gave a written appreciation to the CISF.

He said he left his watch at the security check and forgot to collect it. “Suddenly an officer tapped on my shoulder…I thought there was a problem but he just handed me the watch…He and his female colleague had been searching for me. It was only then that a flash of absence on my wrist went to my brain. I was so stunned that all I could mutter was a repeated “thank you, thank you” while my mind raced through the fact that I was at a very busy Indian airport. They disappeared before I could think of anything else,” Resele said.

The incident took place in the security hold area of the departure Terminal 1D of the IGI airport, which sees a daily footfall of more than 20,000.

Kumari Prabha Rani, a constable in the CISF, one of the two personnel who had tracked down Resele and returned him the watch, said that when she spotted the watch, she asked at least half a dozen passengers if it belonged to them. “When all of them refused, I checked the watch and it turned on automatically. I saw a family picture on the home screen. There was a man, a woman and a child in that picture. We started searching for the man or the woman inside the terminal. It was just ten minutes later that we found him,” she said.

Resele was also pleasantly surprised to learn that no tiring legal formalities were involved in the process of returning the watch. “It would maybe have been put in a box, three forms filled out, maybe entered into an electronic database which would identify it. Then the passenger would make an inquiry and try to get it back, somehow... while already being on another continent,” he said.