The Boy Who Did Not Come Home
At 16:20 a woman reaches the police post near Sector 34, Chandigarh, saying her nine-year-old son did not come home from school. The family lives in Mohali, Punjab; the school is in Chandigarh; the school bus crosses the inter-state boundary twice. She has already spent forty minutes at the school office, which told her it would 'check the CCTV tomorrow'. The school gates close at 17:00. The bus contractor's office, 3 km away, shuts at 18:00. The boy has no mobile phone. The post has one constable, a motorcycle and a landline; the PCR van is on another call. She asks two questions: must she wait 24 hours before a case can be registered, and should she go to Mohali police instead, since she lives there? A crowd of about fifteen people has gathered and one man is filming the conversation on his phone.
1. List the constable's first four actions in order, with the reason for that order.
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Order by what disappears first.
- Register the information immediately. No 24-hour waiting rule applies to a missing child. Reduce her account to writing, read it back to her, obtain her signature and give her a free copy. Note last-seen time, clothing and any distinguishing mark.
- Get the photograph and description out. Send to the control room and PCR channel at once; a photograph in the network within the first hour does more than a search party later.
- Protect the perishable evidence. The school's CCTV may be overwritten. Get a written request to the school before 17:00 and, better, get beat staff to the gate. The bus contractor's log and driver's name before 18:00.
- Call 1098 and use 112 to alert adjoining beats and the Mohali side, because the route crosses the boundary.
As for the crowd and the man filming: keep the mother's details off the record in public, and do not let a rumour become the first circulated version.
2. Jurisdiction: the family lives in Mohali but the school is in Chandigarh. Can this post register the case? Explain what should happen next.
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Jurisdiction does not stand in the way. The child is missing, not the case. Under the zero FIR rule any police station can register the information, give it a number and then transfer it to the station with territorial jurisdiction, without making the complainant travel.
Here the FIR can be registered at the Chandigarh post; the investigation would ordinarily go to Mohali police because the boy's home and likely movements are there. What matters in practice is that both sides work in parallel from the first hour: Chandigarh police check the school and the bus records inside Chandigarh, while Mohali police check the home side and the route.
The mother must not be sent from post to post holding a paper. Record the transfer in writing, keep the zero FIR number, and ensure the receiving station confirms receipt the same night.
3. The mother is told, 'Come back tomorrow with a written complaint.' Identify the specific failures in that instruction and state the correct response.
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Each element of that instruction is a specific failure:
- Asking her to return tomorrow converts an emergency into a queue; the first 24 hours are the most productive and the school CCTV may be gone.
- Refusing to reduce her complaint to writing means there is no timed record and no basis for an FIR - a general diary entry is not a substitute.
- Sending her to Mohali without registering anything is exactly the failure that zero FIR exists to prevent.
Correct response: take the complaint now, register an FIR, hand her a free copy, give her the FIR number and one contact number, and keep her at the post until the control room confirms the message is out. Follow up in person at the school and the bus contractor, and record each step with its time. If the boy is found safe, close the matter with a written entry rather than letting it lapse silently.