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Emergency Helpline 100 and 112 Temporarily Down: Alternative Police Helpline Numbers Released
 
By
Debkumar Bhadra 

Most of us, have grown up with one number to call in crisis. Whether it was 100 or recently, 112, the reflex was the same — dial that number, help will come. It did not matter whether you were in a crowded Mumbai street or in a quiet lane in Sri Vijaya Puram, the emergency helpline number was the same. That assumption was quietly shaken here in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on June 14, 2026, when the A&N Police through a social media post in X (formerly twitter) issued a public advisory informing residents that both emergency helpline numbers 100 and 112 are presently not functioning due to what they described as "unforeseen technical snags." 

Many of you have probably already seen it. Many may have seen it, scrolled past it. By evening, other forwards push it down. By next week, it is gone. And when one actually need that number, you are scrolling frantically through months of chat history looking for something that may have already been deleted by the sender.

That is why this post exists. A blog stays. It can be searched and found — at two in the morning, six months from now, by someone who never saw the original advisory at all. The contact numbers and information here are sourced directly from the official advisory issued by the Andaman and Nicobar Police, and they will remain here for as long as this blog does.

The Numbers You Need Right Now

Before anything else, here are the working contact numbers. Save them. Share them. Send them to your parents, your neighbours, the uncle who still uses a keypad phone.

Police Control Room

• 03192-232100
• 9434289970

Police Station Aberdeen

• 03192-232400
• 8900994455

Police Station Chatham

• 03192-232232
• 9434270033

Police Station Pahargaon

• 03192-250525
• 9474260666

Police Station Bambooflat

• 03192-258411
• 9434299028

Police Station Humfrygunj

• 03192-287590
• 9933275434

Police Station Ograbraj

• 03192-224934
• 9474232107

Police Station Shaheed Dweep

• 03192-282602
• 9531801107

Police Station Swaraj Dweep

• 03192-282405
• 9531888000

Police Station Hut Bay

• 03192-284208
• 9531908234

The advisory is signed by Shri Deepender Kumar Singh, SDPO, South Andaman, and carries the weight of an official communication issued, as it says, in the interest of public safety. 

Something the Police Got Right

Now here is something worth noting. The Police could have let the outage ride out quietly, hoping it gets fixed before too many people notice. That is not an uncommon response when things go wrong in official systems. Silence is always the easier option. 

They did not take that option. 

Instead, A&N Police put out a formal advisory acknowledging the failure, and gave the public not one backup number but ten — covering the control room and police stations spread across the islands, each with a landline and a mobile number. 

Not Just a Technical Inconvenience

But there is a harder conversation underneath all of this, and as islanders, we know it better than anyone. 

In an island setup our communities are separated by stretches of sea. Getting help in emergency is already a different proposition here even under normal circumstances, with working helplines. 

An outage like this is not just a technical inconvenience. For a family in a remote settlement in Little Andaman, or a fisherman's household along the coast of Baratang, the helpline number is sometimes the only link to emergency assistance. When it goes silent, the gap it leaves is not easily filled by a list of ten alternative numbers, however well-intentioned that list may be. 

There is also the question of reach. The advisory circulated through WhatsApp and social media, and that is fine for those who are connected. But our islands have always had pockets where connectivity itself is a struggle. The elderly resident in a rural hamlet who memorised 100 decades ago and knows no other number, does this advisory reach them? The tourist who arrived this week from the mainland with no local contacts and no idea which police station covers which area — what do they do? 

A Question Worth Asking

This episode, quiet as it may seem, points to something that goes beyond a temporary technical failure. 

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands depend on a telecom infrastructure that has always been fragile — undersea cables, aging BSNL networks, limited redundancy. When both 100 and 112 go down together, that should worry us. And it should prompt those responsible to ask some serious questions — not in the heat of this moment, but as a matter of sustained policy. Is there a satellite-based backup communication system in place for emergencies? Is there a pre-existing, permanently publicised alternative number that people can fall back on without waiting for an advisory to be issued? Is All India Radio — which still has strong reach in the more remote parts of these islands — looped into any emergency broadcast protocol? 

These are not unreasonable expectations. If anything, given the geography of these islands and the isolation that comes built into island life, they are the minimum we should be working toward.

The police acted well when the system failed them. 

PS: This post has been written and published so that anyone searching for emergency police contact numbers in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands can find verified, accurate information — even long after the social media posts carrying this advisory have been buried under newer updates or deleted altogether. The contact numbers listed above are sourced from the official public advisory issued by the Andaman & Nicobar Police on June 14, 2026.