Man uses RTI to recover stolen phone

Lost your mobile phone? If you’ve given up all hope of ever getting it back, here’s a last-ditch idea that might just work — filing a Right to Information application, reports Sumit Saxena.

Lost your mobile phone? If you’ve given up all hope of ever getting it back, here’s a last-ditch idea that might just work — filing a Right to Information (RTI) application.

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Maneet Singh Bakshi lost his Motorola L-9 to a pickpocket at a roadside eatery in Rohini, west Delhi. He went to the local police to get a first information report (FIR) registered but was laughed at.

“The officers told me to buy another phone and forget about the one I lost,” Bakshi, a Rohini-based trader, said.

Not willing to give up, he drafted an RTI application with his IMEI (a number unique to each cellphone and encrypted on it) and SIM details and submitted it to the office of the commissioner of police, Delhi. “I registered a complaint. It is a simple task to track down a phone with the IMEI, but the police officials refused to do it,” Bakshi said.

Within 30 days, the Delhi Police responded: “An FIR has been registered in the Rohini police station. The IMEI number has been put on surveillance.”

And within a week of that, the police called back with news that Bakshi’s phone had been recovered.