Acknowledging help, healing touch

Sankar Sen

Rudyard Kipling aptly said that people remember God and police only in distress and never before. When the distress ends, God is forgotten and the police are slighted. However, this observation is not always true. In my long police career, I have witnessed many shining instances of police personnel going out of their way to help those in distress and being gratefully acknowledged for it.

My mind travels back to a case when I was posted as DIG of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Odisha. The department has a squad to trace missing persons. One day, an engineer from the Rourkela steel plant came to meet me. He looked extremely worried. His 12-year-old son had left the house about a week back after a tiff with his mother and the parents had failed to locate him. His wife was distraught and had stopped eating. He himself was passing through unbearable stress and strain.

I told him that the usual practice was to publish a photograph of the boy in newspapers and show slides on television channels. However, it would be better and perhaps more fruitful if he and his wife could visit the probable places his truant son might have gone to.

I deputed a CID Inspector to accompany them so that police help could be sought whenever they visited other states. The father took two weeks’ leave and set out with the Inspector. They visited various places in search of the missing boy.

It was a challenging and exhausting endeavour, but the father was optimistic and the Inspector kept on motivating him all through. The police forces in different states rendered full assistance whenever it was sought.

At long last, the patient but agonising search yielded results. With the help of Maharashtra police, the boy was traced to a place near Pune where he was working in a dhaba. After the tiff, he along with a friend had landed in Pune.

Tracing the boy brought immense joy and relief to the traumatised parents. I also experienced a rare sense of peace and satisfaction. The CID Inspector felt happy and victorious. He had been a pillar of support.

When the engineer, with tears in his eyes, came to thank me, I told him that I too felt suffused with joy. However, I had a request to make. I wanted him to write letters to newspapers and the electronic media highlighting the help and healing touch he received from the police. Sadly, police failures are trumpeted and good deeds go unheralded.

I felt here was an opportunity to set the record straight, not for my sake, but for the entire police force.

The relieved father kept his word. I also experienced a sense of fulfilment.