Man Uses Google Maps To Track Down Thief Who Stole Father¡¯s Mobile Phone From Train
A man from Tamil Nadu used the data from Google Maps to track down a thief who had stolen his father's mobile phone while travelling on a train.
Raj Bhagat, a civil engineer and mapper used the location shown on Google Maps to follow and recover his father's stolen phone.
Mobile phone stolen from train
According to Bhagat, it all began when his father was travelling from Nagercoil to Trichy in sleeper class in Nagercoil - Kacheguda Express.
"The train was relatively empty and another person who boarded along with my dad stole my dad's bag and mobile phone from him and deboarded the train in Tirunelveli Junction," Bhagat said.
After realising that his phone had been stolen, Bhagat's father called him from a friend's phone to tell him what happened.
Tracking mobile thief with Google Maps
"Luckily, among immediate family members, we have location sharing "on" which meant I could track the location of the mobile. When I checked it, I realized that the mobile was moving along the track near Melapalayam in Tirunelveli so I deduced that the thief was returning back to Nagercoil on another train," he said in a social media post.
Bhagat then took the help of a close friend Babin, who is also a local DMK functionary and the duo went to the Nagercoil station, where they assumed the thief was heading.?
They also informed the railway police about the incident and waited at the station for the unsuspecting thief to arrive.
How the mobile thief was caught
But things did not go as planned and the thief who was on board the Kanniyakumari Express managed to get away from the railway station as the train was crowded.
Bhagat did not give up with just his father's black bag and Google Maps location as indicators continued to track him.?
"Based on his movements, I found that he exited through the main gate and took a local bus which connects Nagercoil railway station with Anna bus stand and Vadasery Christopher bus stand. So we started our chase in a bike," he said.
After some time, the two men tracked the mobile thief down in the Anna bus stand.
"After 2-3 minutes, Google Maps gave me a location which was accurate to 2 metres! At that point, I was standing behind him and I just checked what was written in the bag and it was written CITU with its logo. My dad is a union activist. Me and my friend confronted the thief in the bus stand and with the help of other people in bus stand, we recovered my dad's phone and bag," Bhagat said.
With the help of the local police, Bhagat was also able to recover other stolen goods from the thief.
He, however, admitted that he was lucky to get the phone back, only because the location sharing was turned on.
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