A police officer on a motorbike chased a mobile phone thief through the narrow bylanes of Santoshpur on Monday afternoon and caught him in the compound of a house flanked by ponds on either side that he could not cross.

Pranay Das had spotted the cell phone lying on the dashboard of a goods vehicle parked on Santoshpur Avenue around 1.30pm. The driver, Surinder Yadav, was busy offloading crates of soft drink. Das picked the mobile phone and started running but Yadav gave chase.

Debjit Adhikary, a sergeant with the East Jadavpur traffic guard, was passing by when he saw the two men running. He asked Yadav what the matter was and the driver, without stopping, narrated the incident. “Adhikary then joined the chase on his bike,” said a police officer.

Das took to the narrow lanes and bylanes to keep Adhikary off his tracks. “He scaled walls and went from one house to another but Adhikary didn’t give up,” the officer said.

The chase continued for about 20 minutes till Das found himself in a house with ponds on either side. “Adhikary got off his motorcycle and caught Das,” the police officer said.

The mobile phone was recovered and Das was taken to Survey Park police station, where he was arrested.

Auto protest

Autos plying between Garia and Tollygunge stopped ferrying passengers for about an hour on Monday afternoon after a traffic constable posted near Naktala “scolded” an auto driver for hitting him.

The 600-odd autos on the route resumed service after submitting a charter of demands and protesting against police excesses in the area.

Traffic constable Susanta Sinha was on duty at the Usha Gate crossing when a Tollygunge-bound auto allegedly hit him from behind.

Asked why he had hit the cop, the driver said he had “accidentally slammed the accelerator”.

Since it was not a serious accident, the offending driver was let off after a rebuke. Sinha later filed a collision report, as is the practice, at Patuli police station.

The complaint will be forwarded to the Regent Park traffic guard, which will investigate the incident. If found guilty, the driver may be prosecuted for rash and negligent driving.

Auto drivers accused the police of “slapping undue cases”.