Constable Sachin Jadhav, 29, has been given the moniker ‘Missing Man’ by his peers and superiors at Bhosari police station, and rightly so! Sachin Jadhav has managed to reunite 500 children/adolescents – reported missing in the last one year – with their parents, the latest case being that of a 17-year-old boy who had gone missing from Dapodi following a dispute with his mother, who was reunited with her last week by the good constable.
When the missing boy’s mother approached Bhosari police station, senior police inspector Bhaskar Jadhav assigned the case to his best man, Sachin Jadhav. Initial investigations revealed that the missing boy had called his mother to inform that he had left home due to frustration over family disputes and that he was safe and there was no need to search for him. After tracing the mobile number to Pimpri gaonthan, Sachin Jadhav formed a team and visited the location given by the service provider only to find that the number belonged to a salon worker and that the missing boy had used the salon worker’s mobile phone to call his mother.
“After discussing with the missing boy’s friends and family members, I came to know that he wanted to become a hair stylist. He had also called his mother using the salon worker’s mobile phone. We decided to cross-check all salons in the Pimpri gaonthan area. After cross-checking more than 20 such establishments, we finally located the boy from one of the shops where he had already started working and handed him over to his mother,” Sachin Jadhav said.
In another case, Sachin Jadhav recalled waiting for two days at the common water tap of a chawl where he suspected the 18-year-old missing girl had been kept after abduction. “As per my understanding, the girl was kept in a room in that chawl. When we visited the chawl, there was only one common tap water connection and we suspected that she would come there to fill water,” the constable recounted. It was after 50 long hours that Sachin Jadhav was able to locate the missing girl and reunite her with her parents.
{{/usCountry}}In another case, Sachin Jadhav recalled waiting for two days at the common water tap of a chawl where he suspected the 18-year-old missing girl had been kept after abduction. “As per my understanding, the girl was kept in a room in that chawl. When we visited the chawl, there was only one common tap water connection and we suspected that she would come there to fill water,” the constable recounted. It was after 50 long hours that Sachin Jadhav was able to locate the missing girl and reunite her with her parents.
{{/usCountry}}In a third case, a 17-year-old girl had gone missing from Bhosari last month. As per Sachin Jadhav’s usual modus operandi, he collected all her mobile records and tried to call the mobile number from which she had received the last call on her mobile phone but it was switched off. However, the constable persisted and initiated a search operation and identified one of the social media profiles as that of a friend of the missing girl. Detailed scrutiny of the social media profile revealed photos of a Ganesh mandal flex. One thing led to another and Sachin Jadhav nabbed a suspect from Chinchwad who revealed the whereabouts of the missing girl during interrogation.
Sachin Jadhav said that he tracks and analyses call detail records (CDRs), social media accounts etc. to get to the missing children. He is always ready to explore all possibilities to solve such cases even if they appear difficult, he said. “In most cases, the children had left home either because they were attracted to someone or due to family disputes. They did not know what was good for them. In some cases, they had run away after being scolded by their parents,” Sachin Jadhav said.
Sachin Jadhav used to work as a security guard with various government offices in Mumbai before he joined the police force in 2019 and was transferred to the Pimpri-Chinchwad police. He joined the police force because he wanted to do something extraordinary, he said. After repeated requests to his superior Bhaskar Jadhav, Sachin Jadhav was finally appointed to the missing squad in October 2022. “Since then, he has not taken any leave. During his days off, he would visit the parents of the missing persons to get more information about them,” said senior police inspector Bharat Jadhav.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Sachin Jadhav is now keen on solving 1,000 missing cases which he claims he will do in the next six months.