Auto driver picks honesty twice, returns cellphone, bag with passports to passengers

Pune: A year ago, autorickshaw driver Irfan Hussain Shaikh returned a passenger's forgotten iPhone and on Friday he did ir again with a bag containing passports.
It was a déjà vu moment early on Friday for 27-year-old Shaikh after he dropped off a passenger from Pune airport at a housing society in Tathawade. The passenger had arrived from Nagpur around 5am.
"He had three bags with him, and it took me around 45 minutes to take him to his location. He made an online payment and I returned to my house in Nagpur Chawl in Yerawada area. I planned to sleep as I work at night. I parked my autorickshaw and was checking it when I spotted the bag. It didn't take me long to realise that it belonged to the Tathawade passenger," Shaikh told TOI.
Shaikh reported the matter to Shafiq Patel, president of Azad Rickshaw Chalak Sanghatna, of which he is a member. "He told me to take the bag home and wait for instructions. He assured me that they would try to contact the owner. Since I wanted to find his contact number, I opened it a bit and saw 3-4 passports. I knew the bag was important to him," Shaikh said.
Shaikh was asleep when his brother-in-law called him. The online payment method he uses is registered on his brother-in-law's name.
"He was getting messages on the platform requesting him to contact the person immediately. I told my brother-in-law to direct the passenger to come to my house to collect his bag. When he arrived, I showed him his bag, and he was relieved. But I handed it over in the presence of my rickshaw union's president in his office. Had the passenger not got in touch with me, I would have gone back to where I dropped him and returned the bag," Shaikh said.
According to him, the owner realised that his bag was missing while looking for his phone's charger. He checked the CCTV footage of the housing society and realised that he had taken out only two bags instead of all three while alighting.
Patel said Shaikh called him when he found the bag in his rickshaw and again called after contact with the owner was established. "They came to the association's office and the bag was formally handed over."
Shaikh said last year, he had dropped off a man from Pune airport in Nigdi. "His iPhone has slipped out of his pocket. I was at home checking my auto when it rang, and I found it stuck in the seat. I went all the way to his place to return it. People work hard to get things and I would never take another's belonging as it is a crime and sin," he said.