Crime patrol to classroom patrol: How Delhi cops are reaching out to school dropouts

Indian Express

14-06-2025

It's 1 pm on a sweltering Thursday, and Head Constable Ashish Kumar fixes his khaki cap, loosening it slightly while sweat trickles down his hands.
Along with him are three of his colleagues from the DCP (East) office — two in uniform and one in plainclothes — and a beat officer from the Pandav Nagar police station.
They are on a mission — not to catch or question anyone, but to counsel young school dropouts at Jawahar Mohalla, a Muslim-majority neighbourhood, in East Delhi.
This initiative is part of an outreach programme, called 'Nayi Disha — A Path Back to Learning', launched on May 11 by the Delhi Police, which aims to identify and reintegrate children who have dropped out of school into the education system.
As part of this, the schools send a list of dropouts to the police, which is then circulated to teams along with the names, addresses, and phone numbers. According to the data provided by the Pandav Nagar police station, 169 children were on the list provided to them.
Back at Jawahar Mohalla, Kumar and his team step into a narrow lane where low-hanging electrical wires crisscross above, and open, clogged drains run alongside tightly packed homes and biryani shops. A small group of men and children begins trailing the team, curious about the reason behind the unexpected visit.
Kumar stops at a house nearby and knocks on a half-broken wooden door, one of the addresses on the list of dropouts. A 15-year-old boy steps out with his mother, and they walk with the team to a small clinic at the centre of the locality — the venue for the impromptu counselling session.
'I work with my father at the salon,' the boy says, sitting on a small, narrow sofa across Kumar, when asked what he does every day.
The boy's father is a barber, while his mother is a homemaker.
His mother, who is standing on the stairs of the clinic, her face covered because of the people gathered around, chastises him. 'He has marks all over his face because he keeps getting into scuffles every day with boys older than him,' she tells the police team.
The boy fidgets with his hand, looking sheepish.
Kumar then pulls out a list of questions and asks the boy, 'Beta kaun-kaun se subjects main fail hue the (Which subjects did you fail in?)'
The boy, who dropped out in Class IX, replies, 'I was never interested in studies, I found Science and Maths the most difficult of all, and failed those subjects. What's the use of studying?'
The constable nods and offers some advice to the teen: 'A P J Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, rose from poverty because he chose the path of education. It is the shortest path.'
The mother, meanwhile, adds: 'Bahut mota tha ye, ab dubla gaya hai, nashe ke chakkar mein (He was healthy earlier, but now has lost weight because of drug consumption).'
In many instances, the reason for dropping out is drug addiction or involvement in criminal activities, say police.
Next to Kumar, Head Constable Pooja Tomar, who is part of the team, is counselling another Class IX dropout from the same locality; he was identified by beat officers.
'We try to learn the reason and explain the benefits of education to them in a way they can understand,' the team says.
However, officers are not able to meet every name on the list. 'Some migrate with their families for work, others have fed wrong numbers or addresses, and hence they remain untraceable,' says Tomar.
As per data, the drive concluded after counselling 44 of the 169 children.
According to police officers, on June 10, a meeting was held with school principals at the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, West, to understand the common reasons why children drop out and to assess the challenge of drugs in schools. Post this, officers said, more than 300 children and their families expressed willingness to enrol in school again.
A follow-up strategy for this is being prepared by the Community Policing Cell of West Delhi, headed by SI Manish Madhukar, say officers.