Mumbai: Rajesh Pandey, a 60-year-old retired Mumbai police constable, was enjoying a cup of tea with his wife on the afternoon of October 8 when his phone rang. On the other end was a distraught doctor from Satara, Rajendra Mane, who told Pandey that his 22-year-old nephew, Dhanraj, had been missing since August 9.
“I get immense satisfaction when I see someone smile after reuniting with a lost loved one. Retirement has allowed him to devote himself entirely to tracing missing people, particularly children. For harrowed families desperately searching for loved ones, he remains the go-to man. His tenacity and skill in reuniting missing persons with their families remain unmatched, his former colleagues say. “Six months ago, I had invited Pandey to share his experience and method of tracing missing people with my subordinates and new recruits to understand how to go about sensitive cases of missing children. His network across the country has helped us a lot.”
That alone is my fee,” said Pandey, who lives in a 160-sq-ft home in the Naigaon police quarters in Dadar with his wife and two sons. During his 32 years in uniform, Pandey helped solve nearly 3,000 missing-person cases. Pandey joined the Mumbai police in 1992 after his father’s death, hoping to support his four younger sisters. In 2011, while posted at Santacruz police station, he helped a woman trace her kidnapped child to her estranged husband. Taking note of his commitment and style, in 2016, then Mumbai police commissioner Datta Padsalgikar launched Operation Muskan, an initiative to trace and rescue missing and trafficked children. The initiative, with Pandey’s help, traced 2,165 of 2,182 missing minors in 2025, according to Padsalgikar.
“I travel at my expense to follow a lead or tag along with the police team when I get a tip-off,” he said. His methods have even acquired a name within the Mumbai police: the “Pandey Module”. The experience, he said, sparked his passion for finding missing people. “He is committed, and his experience helps and guides us,” said Rakesh Kalasagar, commissioner of Government Railway Police (GRP) Mumbai.
Since then, he has left no stone unturned and has not left any missing-person case pending throughout his career.
The search continues, but Pandey is no stranger to such pursuits. He has taken neither a family vacation nor a day off during this period. Though he retired in February 2025, he has reunited 25 missing people with their families since then.
“I find out every little detail about the missing person, along with his interests or even things that might seem unimportant to the family, like their hobbies, which might give me a lead,” he said.
