Now Kerala student writes to TBS to help get back his stolen iPhone from Bangladesh

Muhammed Shahin Roshan, an MBBS student in India’s Kerala, was travelling to Kozhikode from Ernakulam of Kerala city on 27 March this year.

Right after arriving at Thrissur bus station around 3pm, two men snatched his phone before he could realise what was going on.

“I screamed and ran after them but it was in vain,” he told The Business Standard over the phone.

Three months later, Roshan found out that his phone is in Dhaka.

After reading a TBS report on an Indian national getting back a lost iPhone from Bangladesh, Roshan reached out to this correspondent. 

He sent relevant documents including a general diary and the lost phone’s current location obtained from iCloud, pinpointed around Purbo Rasulpur of Kamrangirchar in Dhaka. 

“I filed a complaint with the Thrissur East Police Station after the phone was snatched, but no concrete information about the phone surfaced,” he told TBS. 

It was an iPhone 15 Pro Max worth around 1.6 lakh Indian rupees, as shown on the receipt from a retailer. 

Roshan tried to locate the lost phone with the ‘Find My’ app for the last three months but did not lose hope.

“After three months and two days, around 3am Monday [1 July], the phone was switched on at Kamrangirchar of Dhaka,” he said. 

“I have no idea how the phone landed in Bangladesh from Kerala, thousands of miles away. It might have been stolen by a transnational mobile theft racket and later they send it to Bangladesh,” he added. 

“My phone was two weeks old when it was stolen, and I’m still paying 7,500 Indian rupees monthly as EMI.” 

Imran Hossain, assistant commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Lalbagh zone, told TBS that they’re trying their best to recover the phone as the lost phone’s current location falls under his jurisdiction.

Earlier on 30 June, an iPhone 13 belonging to Mautusi Ganguly, which was lost in the Beniapukur area of Kolkata, West Bengal, was recovered from Dhaka’s Keraniganj. 

Her daughter, Agnitha Ganguly, promptly filed a general diary with the Beniapukur Police Station after the phone went missing on 26 July last year.

The successful retrieval of the phone was the result of a year-long effort by the DMP. 

Speaking to TBS, SI Milton Kumar Deb Das, who recovered Ganguly’s phone, said, “If the victim files a case regarding the loss of the mobile phone and has all the supporting documents, including the mobile box and other credentials, we can recover the lost phone.”