QUICK TAKE | Meet Chanchal, the Delhi Cop Who Found 119 Missing Children

1. Who is Chanchal?

She is a Delhi Police head constable posted at Jaitpur police station in the South-East district. Between November 2025 and October 2026, she traced 119 missing children and helped reunite them with their families, according to police. Forty-one were under 14. The youngest was about three.

2. What drew her to missing-child cases?

Chanchal remembers seeing parents come to the station looking for their children. She has an eight-year-old daughter and says she could relate to the parents’ distress. “Being a mother myself, I could understand their emotions,” she told ANI. She began taking up missing-person cases with support from her station chief and senior officers.

3. How far did the searches take her?

The work extended across seven or eight states, South-East Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Utkarsh told ANI. Chanchal named Bihar and Jharkhand among the states where children were found. Following those leads meant working with agencies well beyond her own police district.

4. How did she find the children?

Police said Chanchal developed leads, used technical assistance and kept following up on individual cases. She coordinated with child care homes, NGOs and Child Welfare Committees in Delhi-NCR and other states. Her station chief and senior officers helped her get information and technical support.

5. How many missing people did she trace in all?

Police credited her with locating 16 missing adults in the same 12 months. That brought the total to 135 people, including the 119 children. The adults are counted separately from the children in the police figures.

6. Why does the under-14 count matter?

Utkarsh said the Delhi Police’s 2024 standing order sets two thresholds for eligibility. Officers must trace at least 80 missing children in a year, including at least 40 under 14. Chanchal cleared the overall threshold by 39 children and the under-14 threshold by one.

7. Has she been promoted?

The announcement concerns her eligibility for an out-of-turn promotion. That means her work qualifies her to be considered for advancement outside the usual promotion sequence. The DCP confirmed that she had met the criteria.