Last August, head constable Arvind Kasana’s day began with an unusual call: arrange a 15-foot pole and a rope. “A man is stuck in a daldal (swamp), we need to rescue him quickly,” his senior, Assistant Sub-Inspector Satyendra Kumar of the Gazipur police station, told him.

Mr. Kasana procured the items from a nearby colony and reached the spot with constable Manish to find an elderly man trapped waist-deep in a muddy swamp near the Hindon canal. “We handed him one end of the pole and threw him a rope to tie around his waist. We held the other ends and began to pull,” he said.

Rajesh Singh, 60, from Ghaziabad, had slipped during a morning walk and found himself sinking deeper. “The more I moved, the deeper I slipped,” he recalled. Acting quickly, the officers pulled him to safety. “It could have turned fatal,” constable Manish said.

Such incidents, while unusual, are not isolated. Beat officers routinely respond to emergencies, often without protective gear such as gloves, ropes or life jackets.

Their daily routine includes 12-hour shifts of bike and foot patrols, handling disputes, snatching, and theft cases, along with additional duties during VIP movements, events and disasters. “Each case also involves paperwork, court visits and maintaining online records,” said Gulshan Nagpal, Station House Officer of Nabi Karim police station.

Facing death daily

For Sub-Inspector Gajraj Singh and Assistant Sub-Inspector Narendra Rana at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital police chowki, the day often begins with death-- accident victims, abandoned elderly persons and unidentified children.

Over the years, they have handled numerous ‘unknown’ cases and helped families perform last rites. In one recent case, an unidentified patient turned out to be a man who had left his home in Uttarakhand nearly 40 years ago. “We traced his brother, who was overwhelmed to see him after decades,” SI Singh said.

In another instance, a transgender woman who died after an accident remained unclaimed by her family. The officers arranged her cremation and performed her final rites. “During Covid, it was worse, no one would even enter the hospital,” ASI Rana said.

Despite such responsibilities, officers say these duties often go unrecognised. “Hospital staff ask us not to take leave because no one else will do this work,” SI Singh said.

Handling fires with bare hands

Fires have been among the most frequent emergencies this year. In January, constables Mukul, Feru and Sanjay from Nabi Karim rescued guests from a burning hotel in Paharganj, first saving three people stranded on a parapet before entering the smoke-filled building to evacuate others, including burn victims.

Without protective gear, they covered their faces with handkerchiefs. In December, head constable Anil Mahala from Dwarka averted a major fire by carrying a flaming LPG cylinder out of a house and dousing the blaze with a damp bedsheet.

Yet, officers say public expectations remain high. “There is a lot of negativity and misconception about the police. We try our best to change that,” HC Mahala said.