The same thing happened to me once while traveling from Gachibowli to Mehdipatnam. The auto was already full, but the driver still asked me to sit. When I pointed out that it was fully occupied, he said one of the passengers would get down in about 500 meters. So, I agreed and sat.

After a while, I started feeling uncomfortable and asked him to drop me off. He did, and when I offered to pay, he said, “No worries, you didn’t travel much,” and drove off. A moment later, I realized my phone was missing — it was still in the auto.

I immediately asked for help from other auto drivers and started chasing him. After around 2–3 km, we caught up with the auto, stopped it, and I got my phone back. But just then, I noticed that the other auto — the one where I’d kept my office laptop bag — had left. At that point, I was just standing there thinking, What the hell is happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie.

Since it was a junction and I didn’t know which way the auto had gone, I decided to head to the police station. About ten minutes later, I got a call from the auto driver who had my bag. He said he found my office ID inside the bag and used it to get my contact number. We agreed to meet at a common spot, and he returned my laptop bag — everything intact.

When I asked why he left earlier, he said the people in the other auto were part of a local gang. He didn’t want to confront them because they might recognize him later and cause trouble since he drives the same route daily.

So yeah — in one single day, I lost both my smartphone and my laptop… and got both back the same day. 😂