Nagpur: Among and within the countless news reports of crime that we read or watch daily, and in myriads of casefiles stacked in police stations, lie the untold stories of people and their circumstances. In many of those stories, there are children in different roles, and there are police who do their job. At times, the human behind the uniform does much more than the uniform asks to do.
Four police personnel of Nagpur city police narrated such incidences when they went way beyond their allocated duties. The occasion was a workshop on Juvenile Justice System organised by city police in association with Prakruthi Trust, an NGO working in this domain.
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Sat 14 Dec. 2024
A child’s journey from a bootlegger to an IT professional
– Megha Gokhare, API, Yashodhara Nagar PS
Megha Gokhare, currently posted at Yashodhara Nagar police station as Asst Police Inspector got troubled when she saw a boy with a disadvantaged family background involved in illegal liquor selling. It was her early years in the police. She decided to act beyond the periphery of law. She nudged the boy, and his father, to take up an alternative livelihood and made them start selling fish instead of illegal liquor. Extending the financial help from her own pocket, she made the kid restart his education.
The boy made it to an engineering college and Gokharepaid his college fees appreciating his progress. Currently, that boy has finished college and is placed in a reputed IT company. The boy’s father runs a successful fish business and now has built his own house out of that business. It takes a village to raise a child, it is said. Well, sometimes conscious-struck police personnel correct what the village failed to do.
They went aimless to ambitious when kids from slum found a mentor
– Mosami Katre, PSI, Sitabuldi PS
Mosami Katre, currently posted at Sitabuldi police station as Police Sub Inspector was once given the responsibility of being a ‘Police Didi’ for the children in a slum in Nagpur and this slum was full of minors indulging in romantic relationships and eloping, often facing juvenile pregnancies, and adverse consequences. Turns out that the slum now has almost no cases of minor elopement, in police language, cases of IPC Sec 363.
How could Katre do it ? To elaborate on her approach, Katre tells a case of a minor girl from the slum who was about to flee home with a boy from the same slum when Katre ran into her on getting the tip. “Do you want a ruined life like countless girls in your basti or a good life like me ?”, asked Katre to her and made her astop. With the consistent mentoring of Katre, the girl has now completed her graduation in paramedical science and looks forward to the life of a working lady. Similar way the journeys of other children from the slum are heading. Many are shining in sports now, 23 kids won state-level medals recently, a good number of them are up to study and career goals now, and others plan to take up skill education and self-employment. All this has been a long-term effort for Katre but it’s paying off. Didis like Katre is what kids in slums need the most it seems.
Dealing with the 13-year-old girl who delivered a baby
– Minakshi Katole, PSI, Bajaj Nagar PS
Some cases are spin-chilling for the police also. Such a case occurred during covid pandemic when a 13-year-old girl and her 15-year-old brother, children of working parents, somehow watched porn on a smartphone and indulged in sex. The girl got pregnant and the case got exposed when she was about to deliver the baby.
Minakshi Katole, currently posted at Bajaj Nagar police station as Police Sub Inspector, on initiating the police procedure landed into a crisis as the mother of these minors was threatening to slit her own veins if police files FIR or talk to the girl. The even bigger problem was the girl was not ready to speak at all. From disguising as NMC surveyors to dig information from the family’s neighborhood to convincing the little girl to record the statement, everything in that case done by Katole and her team was more than regular policing, says Katole. The investigation was equally nightmarish as the case, she added while mentioning that the girl has resumed her education, her baby got legally adopted and her brother is going through the juvenile justice framework of law.
Found 92 missing persons, the tracing champion of Nagpur police
– Sudhir Khubalkar, Head Constable, Shanti Nagar PS
Nagpur city police have a policeman who traced out 92 missing persons in the last twelve months. Sudhir Khubalkar, currently posted as head constable at Shanti Nagar police station, keeps his travel bag ready and carries the photos of missing people in his wallet all the time. He has been traveling across India on general coaches of trains, often sleeping on the floor, and also hunts down the nooks and corners of Nagpur, on his two-wheeler, to trace down the mission persons.
Khubalkar’s dedication towards finding missing persons impressed Dr Ravinder Singal, Commissioner of Police, Nagpur City, and recently the top cop felicitated Khubalkarwith a cash price of fifteen thousand. Khubalkar made headlines. What drives his untiring dedication ? “In missing people, there are distressed women who often leave home with kids, children who leave over family tiff, mentally unstable ones, elderly, and also clinically depressed. These fellows can’t help themselves. I feel lucky that I am in a position to help them and I feel proud of my work when I see families reunited.”, answers Kubhalkar.
Why these stories are worth telling ? Because these are not just the stories of a ‘good cop’ doing something good and boasting it. The bottom line of these stories indicates the direction for effective and child-friendly policing. Not in all cases police have to go that far as in these stories. But the key is judgment-free constructive policing, in the cases of crime that involves children in any role. These stories give the hope that this approach will bring the desired results.
