Try finding constable Noorjahan if you are lost in Delhi
new delhi — In Delhi, 18 children go missing every day and four of them are never traced, says Alliance for People’s Rights, a NGO. The average number of children missing each year works out to be around 6,000, according to one estimate. A little more than 50 per cent of them are girls. Missing people also include senior citizens and women.
Noorjahan Khatun (27) is the guardian angel of Delhi’s missing people. Her watchful abode is the Delhi Metro. And she “has reunited women, senior citizens and children with their families in over 100 cases, where they had been separated at the Metro”, reports the Hindustan Times.
Khatun is a Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) constable, who does her job with a passion. Last year a woman, a native of West Bengal, was lost and was in tears at New Delhi Metro station. In the middle of boarding a train, she had been separated from her husband. As she could not speak any language apart from Bengali, she was in a state of panic.
Khatun noticed the woman, and found that though she could not remember her husband’s cell number, she could recall the name of the hotel where they stayed. Khatun talked to the hotel reception, got the husband’s number from the register, called up the man who was in a panic himself, and brought the couple together. Such case histories have been documented, and Khatun
18 children go missing every day and four of them are never traced in delhi
most often figures in them as the god-sent savior.
Earlier this year, NDTV reports, Khatun was instrumental in bringing joy to the lives of an old couple from Uttar Pradesh’s Itawah. Their 15-year-old granddaughter had got separated from them in the crowd at Chandni Chowk station. Khatun saw the desperate couple was in a state of shock, and found
6,000 is the average number of children missing each year in delhi
out their granddaughter had gone missing. They did not know how.
The girl, meanwhile, had gone ahead and reached another station. Khatun alerted the CCTV control room, who got into action. The girl was finally located at New Delhi Railway station, and the information relayed back to Khatun. And yet another happy reunion took place, thanks to the young constable, who has an eye for those in distress. And she has plenty of common sense.
The task that Khatun has set for herself is not so simple as it may sound. The Delhi Metro daily footfall is around 2.8 million. It is in this sea of humanity that people like Khatun have to deep-dive and come up with their precious finds.
Khatun joined CISF in 2008, and joined the Metro wing in 2011. Very often, Khatun observes that separation happens at escalators, tills, and censor doors. And of course there is always the milling crowd.
Khatun is now generally considered by her department as the expert in finding missing people. The gentle-looking constable has sharp eyes, and a way of joining the dots that very few people can match up to.