In his red T-shirt and blue pants, with a bag, the 14-year-old boy was last seen riding a bicycle in central Delhi’s Bara Hindu Rao area. It was reported that he had gone missing from his home in Najafgarh. In his office at Civil Lines, sub-inspector Vinod Walia of Delhi Police’s missing persons search team looked at the distance covered by the child and the time it took him to do so. Speed = distance/time. He thought that if the police had left quickly, he would have been arrested in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand.
It worked: A week after the boy went missing, Walia and his four-man team tracked down the 14-year-old and brought him home to Najafgarh.
“The boy’s father passed away during Kovid. He didn’t have many friends who could tell us much. The family opened his MacBook at a service center in Nehru Place — his data gave us a clue as to where he might have gone,” says Walia, adding that the boy’s search history revealed that he had researched religious sites.
“What worries us is that his internet searches included things similar to the Burari case where 11 members of a family hanged themselves (in Delhi in 2018) – spirituality, peace, meditation and what not. We also looked at his Google Maps and found that He was planning to go to Kedarnath via Rishikesh,” Walia told The Indian Express.
A team from Delhi Police’s North District soon left for Rishikesh and also alerted their counterparts in Uttarakhand. Along with the police in Rishikesh, the Delhi Police eventually spotted the boy sitting on a ghat. Then he was handed over to the family.
The team is active
It was in January 2022 that the North District Police’s missing persons search team launched ‘Operation Search’ with a specific mandate: to search for missing persons not only from the recent past, but from years before. The operation launched by the then DCP Sagar Singh Kalsi solved 1,05 cases including kidnapping and human trafficking last month. Of the nearly 21,000 people declared ‘missing’ in Delhi, 950 are from North Delhi.
On the ground floor of DCP North’s office in Civil Lines, the team occupies a room buzzing with energy as orders are passed around. At one end of the room the team records call data, CCTV footage and tracks social media; Another has members who scroll through Zipnet – a special police database of missing persons. The moment a case arrives in the database, two teams are assigned the task. As one person goes to the scene of the disappearance, the other tries to gather as much technical evidence as possible. The moment they hit on a solid clue that might lead them to a victim, they hit the ground running – whether it’s in the city or beyond.
Some cases take a day to resolve, others take weeks and even months. The team works in teams of two – one person does the field work and the other parses through technical evidence and the internet to help with the search.
Time is of the essence in new cases, and the team goes through a lot Data as much as possible to help in its search. When the team hits the signal, the staff rushes onto the field.
For the unit, the most difficult cases are those involving children. According to head constable Ashish Kumar, who received an out-of-turn promotion in 2022 for “extraordinary work”, most minors who go missing do so because of domestic disputes or relationships.
Constable Reena Chauhan, who received Delhi Police’s Ashadharan Karya Award for ‘extraordinary devotion’ in 2023, narrates the example of the oldest case cracked by the team – that of a 13-year-old girl who went missing from Sarai Rohilla for 10 years. First.
“We found him in a town in Uttar Pradesh. She is now 23, has children and is married to the man she ran away with. Whether the case is five years old or 10 years old, our aim is to find the missing,” Chauhan said.
Some cases are more difficult than others, such as those involving hearing impairments. “These are challenging because a missing person cannot communicate with anyone. When you question people on the ground, they also have no clue,” says Constable Gurpreet Singh.
He cites a case of June 18, 2023, which is particularly close to his heart. The case involved a 16-year-old deaf teenager who went missing and could not find her way back home to Burari. The girl was found nearly a month later, on July 15, in Bawana, North West Delhi.
“During the day, we took his photo and went out on the streets to look for him. Each day, we scanned the CCTV. Our search ended when we met him at the shelter home in Bawana. I still can’t forget how he smiled and hugged us when we met him. The joy was overwhelming… he was almost in tears,” he says.
But for Chauhan, the real challenge is the repeated incidents of children running away. He gave the example of a 14-year-old girl who left home on September 16, 2023. The girl was tracked down in Surat, Gujarat and brought back but the child has run away thrice.
“We cannot do anything because she is a minor and it is our duty to bring her back. Every time she ran away, we brought her back – last month last month. She says she does not want to live with her parents but we cannot help in that situation as we are bound by law. ,” says Chauhan.
Assistant sub-inspector Dinanath, who uses only his first name, and Jagveer Singh both agree that such cases are particularly demanding. They cite a case from May 13, 2024, when two sisters aged 12 and 14 went missing from the Wazirabad police station area. Days later, a three-member team, including a female employee, went to Madurai in Tamil Nadu, where they found the girls working as domestic workers.
“His father, with whom they did not have a good relationship, went with us but they refused to return because they liked freedom. It’s been a great job for us. After much consultation, we somehow convinced them,” says Dinanath.
Then there is the challenge of working in difficult situations, such as having to travel without reservations in time-sensitive situations. The team also cited an example of how a policeman led a three-member team that once had to stand in a train bathroom that was chock-a-block.
“We laugh after all these episodes but we feel there should be some reservation for the police and at least one seat should be given when traveling for such operations,” says a policeman.
happy ending
IPS officer Raja Banthia, the current DCP of North Delhi, believes that reaching the milestone of 1,000 cases is remarkable given the difficulties.
‘Kidnapping, abduction and human trafficking cases are a big challenge. It becomes a lifelong nightmare for families who lose their loved ones… In today’s world, people living in metropolises are often unaware of their own neighbors, making it easy for criminals involved in human trafficking. This makes it challenging for the police department to trace such missing persons,” he said.
But for Walia, the challenges involved in the task are offset by something more priceless: the joy of reuniting families.
He says, ‘When searching for missing children and meeting them with their families, we experience tears, happiness, sadness, love and all kinds of emotions.
For a family in Najafgarh, it ended a harrowing week when their 14-year-old son was found missing.
“He left home saying, ‘I will become a monk,'” says the boy’s uncle. We managed to find him, and it was a great satisfaction to see him intact.”
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