Overview
- Gujarat Police, which on Thursday honored top district officers, reported 53,564 stolen phones returned in FY 2025–26 for a 46.71% recovery rate.
- The state outpaced the national recovery average of 32.6%, placing third among major states for getting blocked devices back to owners.
- Police worked in lockstep with the Department of Telecommunications using CEIR and the Sanchar Saathi portal, which flag a phone’s unique IMEI so networks can block and help trace it.
- District results drove the gains, with Ahmedabad City leading state rankings after 4,935 recoveries from 25,500 block requests, followed by Dang for high accuracy and Bhavnagar for consistent returns.
- Across India, 50,48,516 phones have been blocked to date, including 1,83,985 in Gujarat, and district nodal officers there traced 1,14,670 blocked handsets, curbing illegal resale and related fraud for victims.