This enticing story revolves around a teen from Mumbai whose name is Zeenat Banu Haq, who teaches at a preschool in Marol. On a dreary Sunday afternoon, she was returning from a trip to Malad. Shockingly, she found her smartphone, Xiaomi 4A, went missing in the middle of her journey. She failed to recollect where her phone went missing.

What’s then? Is it the end of the story?

She followed the textbook rule of finding her smartphone. She logged onto her Gmail account and turned on the ‘location’ mode of her stolen phone through another device. Very few know about the fact that there is a section called ‘My Activity’ in a Google Account where a definite user can view and manage activities such as websites visited, videos watched, and searches executed.

The 19-year old teacher made use of this feature and started keeping track of the activities that were done on her stolen phone. To her surprise, she found that the pickpocketer has searched for songs from the Rajnikanth starrer ‘Kaala’. The thief even used the SHAREit App, updated WhatsApp messenger, and also accessed Facebook account. He even downloaded a railway ticket-booking app.

The young lady was seeing that the battery of the phone was draining out due to excessive usage of the phone. The phone was used to book a Dadar-Tiruvannamalai railway ticket for Sunday. He used the phone for taking a screenshot of the PNR Number and seat details. He even went on to click a selfie with the phone.

Through Google photos, the lady accessed the ticket details of the thief, and by searching it on Google, she came to know that the ticket was of Puducherry express that was supposed to leave at around 9.30 PM from Dadar Terminus. She played a smart act afterward. She straight headed for Dadar Railway station from her home and ultimately narrated the entire incident to the RPF personnel after reaching the station. The thief forgot to switch off the location option in her phone which helped the young woman in finding the location of her phone.

Although the train arrived at the terminal, the man took some time in arriving. After the person entered the coach and took his seat, the RPF started to interrogate him. Although the young lady’s phone was retrieved, the thief claimed that the phone was pawned with him. After repeated questioning, it has been found that the convict was indeed guilty and the woman he was traveling with started giving contradictory answers which clearly revealed that the person was culpable of the crime.

What to do when your phone is stolen?

Once your device gets stolen, resort to the following steps.

• Immediately file FIR and provide police with your IMEI number.
• Immediately block your SIM card to restrict misuse of credit/debit cards.
• Change passwords of all accounts you were logged in from your phone to prevent misapplication of your confidential information.

It is worthy to be noted that once you end up getting a phone in your hand, you should customize the settings provided in Find My iPhone (for iOS users) or Android Device Manager(for Google users). Through their advanced settings, you can easily lock your screen with a new password and delete all the stored data.