Honesty At Its Best! Officers At Delhi Airport Track Austrian Using Photo In Smartwatch To Return Gadget

In an inspiring episode which is going to add to India¡¯s reputation abroad, the two Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) searched for an Austrian man on Indira Gandhi International Airport and returned his smartwatch which he had forgotten to collect after security check.

Peter Resele got surprised and was slightly taken aback when an officer of CISF patted him on his shoulder, but got relieved when the officer handed over him his watch. Resele was amazed how the CISF personnel tracked him in an airport which remains full of people. Resele got his answer when the officer told him that the smartwatch had a picture of Resele and his family and they tracked him with help of that picture.

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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 told Hindustan Times.

Resele decided to thank officers with tip, but the officer refused the money and asked him to write an appreciation note about CISF in the book kept for this specific purpose. Resele did that happily.

He decided to go back and do more than just verbally thanking them. ¡°As I expected, my attempt to tip the two was outrightly refused - I hadn¡¯t been able to come up with a better idea. Then, the head officer invited me to write an appreciation note, which I was only too happy to give, in a thick, old, dog-eared book that showed I was by far not the only person who felt indebted to them. It felt good to write it and give my details, at least something I could do for them. I sincerely hope their deed is honoured by their superiors,¡± Resele said.

The incident had taken place in the security hold area of the departure Terminal 1D which daily receives footfall of over 20,000. Kumari Prabha Rani, a constable in the CISF, one of the two personnel who tracked down Resele said that she had asked half a dozen passengers if the watch belonged to them.

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¡°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 further surprised that there were no legal formalities involved in process of returning the watch. ¡°It would maybe have been put in a box, three forms filled out, may be 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.