The 200 km journey of my phone and back

This is another unbelievable thing that happened, but this one is with a happy ending. About 6 weeks ago, I lost my new phone within a month of buying it.. and my brother and I have been trying to trace it with unprecedented support from the police and encouragement from some of my colleagues. After we got the details of the person whom my phone was last tracked with, lets call him, Mr.ABC, I got in touch with a constable, Mr. Nagaraj in Holalkere who passed the case to the Sub Inspector, Mr. Prakash Patil of Chikkajajur police station (Chitradurga, about 200 km from Bangalore). A few days later, Mr. ABC was summoned to the police station and interrogated, only to find that he had a different model of the phone which he had been using for the past 2 years for which he had the bill too. Obviously the IMEI numbers weren't matching. But, the tracker message can't be wrong. The SI also was convinced and promised to continue the enquiry. I put him in contact with the person-in-charge at the ACP office (Mr. Suresh) at Bangalore who had got me the address of Mr. ABC.

Today morning I got a call from SI Prakash Patil saying he was not able to establish any connection with my phone and Mr. ABC. I said fine, Thank you. What else could be done? I gave up and started planning on buying a new proper phone and all the contacts that I will have to feed in. After about 2 hours, I got another call from the SI seeking details about the phone model again, my address and how I lost the phone. I felt that he wanted these details to close the file.. actually, I had only an acknowledment for the lost phone, yet, the police were cooperating so much. Then he said, I have your phone here in the station. I couldn't believe it. I thanked him so much and told him that I would like to come to the police station and thank him personally. He was so calm and composed, just doing his duty, but I was so excited! He said they got the phone after some cross questioning on Mr. ABC. Apparently, Mr. ABC's friend Mr. XYZ's aunt had been to the same wedding that I had been to and she picked up my phone near the handwash and gave it to her nephew. And the 'innocent' nephew happily started using the 'gift' from his aunt. On 6th Nov, Mr. ABC put his SIM in my phone out of curiosity, for a few minutes. For his bad luck and my good luck, we were able to trace him and eventually my phone.
Coincidentally, mom is in Chitradurga this weekend and she collected the phone in the evening.

OK. it doesn't end there. I messaged Mr. ABC and 'thanked' him for returning the phone. After a few minutes, I got a call from him. I deliberately did not want to call him and create a scene. But, Mr. ABC himself called as he wanted to clear a few a things from his side. He explained how Mr. XYZ had got the phone and how he was not aware that it was not legally bought by Mr. XYZ. Infact, for the first few days of the enquiry, he had no clue why he was being interrogated. After he was told about the tracker message that came on 6th, it struck him that it could be because of Mr. XYZ's new phone from Bangalore. He convinced his friend to return the phone. Unfortunately, poor Mr. ABC had to pay the price for his friend's mistake.

All in all, a happy ending, and a great job by the police. A big thank you to Suresh, Prakash Patil and Nagaraj. I am happy to note that the system works :)