Every mobile phone owner, more or less, experiences the onset of panic and despair the moment he realises his phone is missing. But what happened to me is more than that when I suddenly saw my mobile phone gone in the blink of an eye.

The story may sound bizarre, but whenever I think of the incident, a shiver goes down my spine.

It happened on Sunday midnight when I was returning to my Bashundhara home by my office-hired CNG-run three-wheeler in a relatively calm Dhaka city. One of my colleagues was with me.

Like other three-wheelers, our vehicle had mesh-doors closed just to ward off any untoward people to enter inside. I took my Samsung Galaxy S4 out of my pocket as soon as the vehicle started rolling past my office around 10:30pm.

Tired of daylong work, I wanted to refresh myself and so sank in the virtual world of social media. I was tweeting and all went well until I reached Banani.

After the vehicle crossed the Banani intersection, I saw my mobile literally take a flight from my hand. Dumbfounded, I looked around, trying to make sense of what just happened. I was so confused and panicked that I told the driver to stop. As he stopped instantly, I started searching the phone inside the vehicle.

But the phone was nowhere. To our utter shock, the driver discovered a hole in the thin sheet covering the vehicle's roof.

"Certainly a snatcher took away the phone by cutting a hole," the driver said, adding that this kind of snatching had been going on for quite some time now.

But we were shocked and started wondering how the thief got onto the running vehicle and did all these so meticulously.

"It is a unique way to snatch mobile phones," the driver said, adding that sometimes they injure passengers with knives with which they make the hole.

I was terrified and thanked God that we were spared of bodily harm. The rest of the way, I couldn't rid myself of the thought how the snatcher made it possible. Even after I reached home, I couldn't get a wink of sleep.

So beware. Try not to work on your mobile phone while riding such vehicles especially at night unless the use of phone is very, very urgent.