Police have started using doorstep food and medicine delivery companies to ascertain the addresses of people who have been “absconding” for years but placing online orders for food and medicines.
A south Kolkata resident who had a non-bailable arrest warrant against him in connection with a case under the Negotiable Instruments Act since 2008 was recently arrested from an address in Behala.
The police came to know about the address from a company that delivered medicines to the accused, who has changed his location at least twice in the last 16 years.
Although police had his latest mobile number, they could locate only the neighbourhood by tracking the tower location of the phone.
“The technique gives the location of a SIM card with a radius of approximately 500m,” an officer said.
Instead of opting for a door-to-door search, which may alert the accused and even disturb neighbours, the officers involved in the case sought the help of a medicine company that had been taking online orders and delivering medicines to the accused.
In another such case from 2021, where the accused was hiding somewhere in Maheshtala, on the southern fringes of the city, the police recently received help from a food delivery company where the accused would place an order almost daily. The accused was arrested.
This technique is being used to nab people who are mostly charged with crimes such as cheating, criminal breach of trust or issuing a cheque with inadequate funds in the account, an officer said.
“This technique has proved effective in getting hold of people who have old cheating cases and non-bailable arrest warrants pending against them. Many of them have come to believe that they won’t be arrested after so many years,” the officer said.
A police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the first step is to collect the recent phone number of the accused.
“Once we get the phone number, we get the tower location. But that is not enough to zero in on the address. So the call details are analysed. If it is found that the person regularly orders medicines, food and other items online, we write to the legal cell of the companies that deliver such items seeking the address from where the orders are being placed,” said an officer posted in south Kolkata.
Another officer in the North division of the city police said that while sending the request for the address, the exact transaction details have to be sent to the company to help them identify the account from where the order has been placed.
Several officers across the city said this process has helped them execute old non-bailable arrest warrants that are pending for many years and where the accused no longer stay in the old registered address.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the city police have been focussing on executing old non-bailable arrest warrants.
“We are carrying out a drive for two to three months to execute all pending arrest warrants in all police station areas,” said a senior police officer at the city police headquarters in Lalbazar.
