Chennai: Southern Railway has introduced a facility allowing passengers to file a complaint and block a lost mobile phone without having to visit a police station.
This service is being offered in collaboration with the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Department of Telecommunications.
If you realise your mobile phone is lost during a train journey, the first step is to report it via the Rail Madad app or by calling 139. Following this, you should register the loss on the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal. The RPF, together with the Zonal Cyber Cell, will then immediately block the phone. Efforts to recover the device will also begin.
To prevent misuse, the lost phone will be blacklisted across all networks in the country. Passengers do not need to visit a police station or file an FIR to avail of this service. Digital complaints can even be filed using the phones of fellow passengers.
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Those travelling alone can seek assistance from the Train Ticket Examiner (TTE), an RPF official, or a trusted co-passenger. The Railway has also advised passengers to note down their phone's 15-digit IMEI number in a diary or store it securely in cloud storage to make full use of this facility.