In perhaps one of the achievement of its kind, a woman constable of Delhi Police has successfully traced a whopping 76 missing children in a span of three months. And for this she had got out of turn promotion.
Ms Seema Dhaka’s unheard of feat has created a big splash in the social media, and she is trending at many places.
In fact, Ms. Dhaka, serving as the Head Constable in Delhi’s Samaypur Badli police station has been named as “the first police personnel in the Delhi Police who has been given an out-of-turn promotion in an additional incentive scheme”. The additional incentive scheme was the brainchild of Delhi Police Commissioner Mr. S N Srivastava.
VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION
In an exclusive interview with Indian Masterminds, Ms. Dhaka said “Since Mr. Srivastava, took the charge as the commissioner of Delhi Police, ings he used to motivate us to keep a track on the problems children face in day-to-day life, and that also included the big issue of missing children. Also, my seniors at the police station used to motivate us in taking participation in such activities.”
On August 5, 2020, Mr. Srivastava announced an additional incentive scheme specifically for constables and head constables. Their target: to rescue 50 or more missing children under the age of 14 within a period of 12 months. The official who managed to complete the task within the given period would be given an out-of-turn promotion. This incentive scheme not only encouraged the lower rank officers but also gave them an additional power which was never in their hand before.
Ms. Dhaka said, “Cases such as kidnapping, etc. are mostly given to the rank of ASI and SI and constables hold the assistant role in such cases. But after the scheme and the standing announced by the Commissioner, the rights of the senior officers were immediately transferred to the constables and head constables for looking into such cases.’’
Ms Dhaka emphasized that she wanted to voluntarily participate in this scheme not only for the out-of-turn promotion “but also for doing something for the society.”
And boy, what performance she churned out! She managed to trace76 missing children, out of which 56 were below the age of 14, in just two and a half months.
PLANNING AND RIGHT EXECUTION
She said, “As soon as I started working for tracing the missing children, I collated a station-wise list of untraced children and started contacting the complainants. I started following up on the information I gathered from them and took appropriate action. Also, we gathered intelligence information from various sources. Thereafter, it was a matter of connecting all the dots, and I started tracing the children one by one.”
The FIR of all the 76 children were registered in Delhi but the children belonged to various parts of the country. Most of them were from Delhi (NCR), eastern UP, and Bihar. She also managed to rescue children from West Bengal, Punjab, and Haryana. But there was one case from Hoshiarpur for which she also faked her identity to reach the child and even her mother who was also missing for the past 4-5 years.
WHEN BOTH A WOMAN AND HER CHILD WENT MISSING
Speaking about this particular incident, Ms Dhaka said, “It was a kidnapping case in which both mother and the child were missing. I contacted the complainant who gave me the address of her home. However, the members of her family refused to tell me anything as they had lost connection with them. By examining and questioning the neighbors I found out that the lady once visited the village. I then somehow tracked her friend who was in contact with the woman, she further gave me her number.”
“Without revealing my real identity, I contacted the lady as an unknown person calling from a call centre in regards to an issue regarding her Aadhar card. After talking to her four or five times, I convinced her in giving me the address. Soon I reached their place and rescued both of them and brought them back to Delhi”, she added.
According to her,“most of the children I traced were from very poor financial background. Even their parents were not in a position to go out and rescue them.”
After Ms Dhaka’s heroic performance, many bureaucrats have joined in praising the head constable for becoming the first women police personnel to get an out of turn promotion in the Delhi Police. Some of these are:
Now Ms. Seema Dhaka has proved her mettle, one looks forward to many such achievements from her in the future.
