Sixteen-year-old Aditya Gaikwad, whose phone was stolen on June 17 in Vashi, had never thought that his friend would be the one to get his phone back.
Gaikwad’s friend, Deepanshu Ghosalkar, 16, who was with him when the mobile was snatched, had heard about how the stolen phones are often sold at websites that sell second-hand goods. He decided to start sleuthing on these sites and in two months not only found his friend’s mobile but also the thief with the help of the police.
On the evening of June 17, while Gaikwad and Ghosalkar were walking towards the bus depot after their college, they tried to be Good Samaritans and ended up losing one of the phones.
As per the complaint registered by Vikram Gaikwad (47), father of Aditya, his son and Ghosalkar had reached the service road from Sagar Vihar to Shivaji Chowk when a duo on a two-wheeler approached the friends and asked if they found any wallet on the road. When the friends denied seeing it, the bike rider asked for Ghosalkar’s phone to make a call and returned the phone after making the call. Later, the pillion rider asked for the phone from Gaikwad which he gave and the duo fled with the phone.
An FIR was immediately lodged at Vashi police station. Even as the police were yet to get any breakthrough in the case, Ghosalkar, who wants to pursue higher studies in cyber security, started looking for the phone on the website.
“I have heard that many sell stolen goods via these websites. Though I was not sure about it, I took a chance and the very next day after the theft, the photo of the phone was uploaded on a website. My friend’s phone had some ink stains and that is how I could recognize the phone,” Ghosalkar said. Originally worth ₹15,000, the phone was up for sale at ₹7,000 at a location in Vile Parle.
After further negotiation, the seller agreed to come to Vashi station to give the phone. When they went to get the phone, they found that the person who came to sell it was not the one who had actually stolen the phone.
“He did not even know that it was a stolen phone. The police had already laid a trap and caught the guy who came to sell the phone but after we identified that he was not the accused, he was not taken into custody and was instead asked to help the police to get the real accused nabbed,” Ghosalkar said.
The case was then investigated by the Central Unit, Crime Branch. After working on various leads from the seller, the police made the first breakthrough last week by nabbing the two accused who had come near Koparkhairane DMart to sell another stolen phone. The accused were identified as Akash Rajesh Kamble (22) and Siddhesh Suresh Mourya (26), both residents of Koparkhairane. Later, a third accused identified as Imran Jakir Shaikh (30) was also arrested.
“The main accused is Kamble and he, at times, asks Mourya or Shaikh to join him. With the arrest of the three, we were able to solve five cases of similar mobile thefts,” Gangadhar Devade, assistant police inspector from Central Unit, said.