India News | After Hours Cop Crusader Restores over 200 Missing Children to Families

New Delhi, Apr 29 (PTI) By day, Ajay Jha is a policeman, but after hours, he becomes a man on a mission to reunite families with their missing children.

Over the past 18 months, Jha has helped reunite more than 200 missing children, most of them specially-abled, with their families under 'Mission Milap,' an initiative he pursues beyond the call of duty.

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Jha, an Assistant Sub-Inspector in the security unit of the Delhi Police, began the initiative in November 2023, after he was moved by the difficulties faced by his 17-year-old son, who is also specially-abled –- an umbrella term used often to describe certain emotional, speech, or mental impairments.

He says he gets about 100 calls and messages on average day from parents desperately seeking help to locate their children.

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As part of his calling, Jha goes to shelter homes to counsel specially-abled children and finds leads through 'Mission Milap' on Facebook and WhatsApp groups.

Jha also bears the cost of travelling incurred by the families, who come from nearly every state of the country, even Nepal, and refuses to take any reward announced on the successful location of the missing.

"When I started doing this, I just had one thought- my child is safe with me, but what about the many families whose children have gone missing?" he said.

He said that since his son has been in counselling for 14 years, he understands better how to communicate with such children.

"They usually do not have an idea what they are doing. Some get separated at such a young age that they do not know a thing about their homes. More importantly, they find it hard to talk to people, making it harder to locate their families," he said.

Often, the parents are so poor they do not have a mobile phone, do not know where to begin, and end up getting duped by some fraud or the other, he said. "I want to make such people aware too and help them in finding their loved ones."

Once, he recalled, he reunited a family with its child who had been living in a shelter home for 7.5 years – all within 24 hours.

"On November 27 last year, he said this, and the very next day, I located his sister and brought her to him. It had been such a long time. He could not recognise her at first," Jha said.

"All I want is a smile on their faces. I like to document the moment the children meet their families. It is an ineffable and surreal moment," said the policeman who looks forward to pursuing this calling full-time after he retires

Once, the Rohtak Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairperson contacted him to help them locate the families of three missing kids. He solved that case too in only 24 hours.

"I have learnt a lot in my journey. I have developed local informers in different states. I try to narrow down places based on the dialect of the mission person. Hence, many people contact me to help them, and I happily oblige as soon as I am free from my professional commitment," he said.

Of all the children he helped restore to their families, about 70 to 80 were either women or underage girls.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)