In one corner of the Mumbai Police control room, three constables work silently at their terminals, tapping away at their keyboards. This section is located away from the hustle and bustle of the main control room, where calls are fielded from all over the city, and information relayed to the police station or authority concerned. This team only works on tracing mobile phones that are reported lost or stolen.

In October last year, Mumbai was selected as one of the eight cities across the country to implement the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) project on a pilot basis. An initiative of the Central government’s Department of Telecommunications, CEIR was introduced in order to tackle the ever-growing monster that the mobile phone black market has become. In 2021, 51,030 phones were reported stolen in Mumbai; the number stood at 39,819 in 2020.