A 20-year-old youth from Borivali West, who used to steal mobile phones and later sell them on the black market, had successfully stayed off the radar for four years. Everything was going on smoothly until a minor oversight – he had forgotten to switch off a handset buried in his chawl’s backyard – led to a police team snooping around his house.
Sudhir Kudalkar, senior police inspector of MHB Colony police station, said they had received 10 mobile phone theft complaints in the last three months, and in all cases, the handsets were taken away while they were connected to the charging points near windows or doors.
The latest victim was Vikas Raman Rai, 24, a resident of Lakshman building in Borivali West. In his police complaint filed on Monday, he said that his Vivo mobile phone worth ₹16,000 was stolen from near his window a day before.
Kudalkar said after receiving Rai’s complaint, they tried to trace the stolen phones using their IMEI numbers. “On Wednesday, we got lucky as one of the phones was still on and with the help of the mobile tower location, we reached a chawl opposite Lakshman building.”
The police team found that Vijay Surela, who had been wanted for mobile thefts over the past four years, had been staying in the chawl. However, a search of his one-room house yielded nothing.
“Our officer Suryakant Pawar, who was heading the team, then dialled Rai’s mobile number and found it ringing. The entire room was searched again but the phone could not be located. Pawar then called up the number again and heard a dull sound coming from the backyard,” the senior police inspector said.
The team reached the muddy area behind the chawl and dug up the ground. “We found a parcel wrapped in a plastic cover. We removed the package and found 10 mobile phones in it. Interestingly, Rai’s phone was not switched off like the others,” Kudalkar said.
The package was not buried deep as Surela wanted to sell the handsets and could not afford to damage them, Kudalkar said, adding that he was immediately arrested.
Surela was produced before a metropolitan magistrate court which remanded him in police custody for four days.