For the 800 families he has reunited with their missing loved ones, Police Naik Rajesh Pandey, 52, is nothing less than a 'Devdoot' (messenger of god). Never has this moniker been more apt than during his most recent feat, when he found the missing Ram Avatar and brought him together with his family. Ram Avatar Mangilal, in this case, is a 60-year-old retired army jawan who was found begging near the Andheri Metro station.

A few days ago, police personnel residing in the locality noticed the elderly man begging on the streets in filthy clothes. Pandey, a police naik with the Andheri police, was also passing by the locality on November 20, when he spotted the aged man scrounging for alms. "Even taking him to the police station didn't help much, as he was mentally ill, and couldn't recall much about his background. We took him to Cooper hospital, and he told us that he hailed from Merta in Rajasthan," recalled Pandey, who managed to trace Mangilal's family within 24 hours using that one piece of information.