Head Constable Chanchal, posted at Jaitpur Police Station in South-East Delhi, has traced 119 missing children between November 2025 and October 2026, plus 16 missing adults — a total of 135 recoveries. Of the children, 41 were below 14 years, youngest around three years old, and 78 were between 14 and 18.
It is not just a number. Under Delhi Police Standing Order 2024, personnel who trace at least 80 missing children in a year, including 40 below 14, become eligible for out-of-turn promotion. Chanchal has crossed it with 41 under-14 recoveries. DCP South-East Utkarsh confirmed she now qualifies.
Her beat is Jaitpur — bordering Faridabad, with dense migrant clusters, JJ colonies, and high case load. Most missing complaints are from daily-wage families who cannot chase files. Chanchal's method was old policing plus new tools: intelligence gathering in localities, technical assistance — CDRs, mobile tracking, CCTV trails and persistent coordination with child-care homes, NGOs and Child Welfare Committees across Delhi-NCR and seven to eight states — Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Haryana, Rajasthan and more.
"For the past one-and-a-half years I have been posted at Jaitpur," she told ANI. “I have an eight-year-old daughter, and I felt deeply connected to their suffering.”
That line matters. Locating missing children is among the hardest policing tasks — NCRB data shows 47,000 children went missing in India in 2023, 30% untraced. Risks are trafficking, child labour, sexual exploitation, begging rackets. A child missing for 48 hours has 50% chance of being pushed into crime network. Chanchal's cases included children found in Jharkhand brick kilns and Bihar homes.
Senior officers appreciated her dedication and compassion. Two words rarely together in policing narrative. Delhi Police's Operation Milap reunited 800+ children in 2025, but individual initiative like this shows what incentives can do.
For Indian policing, Chanchal is a case study. We celebrate encounters; we should celebrate tracers. The 2024 order linking out-of-turn promotion to child tracing was meant to shift focus from FIR pendency to human recovery. It is working.
In a city where AQI is 377 and trust in uniform is low, a woman constable bringing 119 children home, one every three days restores something more than families. It restores faith that police can still be about protection.
*Tags:* #DelhiPolice #Chanchal #Jaitpur #MissingChildren #OperationMilap #ChildTracing #OutOfTurnPromotion #SouthEastDelhi #ChildWelfare #WomanCop