Amid the recent protests and thousands of detentions in Delhi, at least 24 mobile phones belonging to detainees remain unaccounted for.

Their owners were detained around 4 pm on October 11 in Connaught Place. A complaint was sent to the police accusing four policemen of snatching the phones the same day. But lawyers who helped the detainees filed the complaint claimed the police refused to register a regular FIR. They say they were compelled to opt for an e-FIR – lodged on October 16 at the Connaught Place police station on theft charges despite the alleged snatching.

Connaught Place police station SHO Sukhbir Malik denied the allegations and said the police are probing the matter. “We did not take anyone’s phones. These people misplace their phones themselves or leave them at home. They then put pressure on the police,” Malik said. 

The complaint, filed on behalf of one Pankaj Sahu, claims the police had collected phones from detainees inside a blue van and told them the devices would be returned on release. When the van reached a detention centre in Pandwala Khurd at about 7:35 pm, the phones were not in it. No officer there took responsibility for them and no seizure memo was given despite procedural norms, the detainees claim.

Newslaundry reviewed location records for at least four of the phones. They show the devices last transmitting between 6:27 pm and 7:09 pm from Dwarka and southwest Delhi, some near canals and a bridge, while the detainees were possibly still in transit or just arriving. Though the records do not establish who disabled or moved the phones, or whether they followed the van’s route.

The transit: ‘They told us to approach cops in CP’

The detainees claimed they were told to unlock their phones and clean up their galleries, before being told at the end of the journey that their devices were not in the van.

Hemansh Kashyap, a 28-year-old corporate employee who was detained that day and whose phone is among the 24 that remain missing, claimed they were first taken in a DTC bus from near Chili’s restaurant on Connaught Place’s Outer Circle to a barricaded area near Pind Balluchi. “We were subsequently taken individually into a blue police van, where a policeman collected our phones and placed them in a black bag near the van door. In some cases, the policemen were forcing the........

© newslaundry