Rakesh Maria, one of the most decorated police officers of the country has launched his autobiography ‘Let Me Say it now’. The former Police Commissioner of Mumbai throughout his illustrious career has been involved in numerous and some of the most complicated and dangerous cases or crime and terror.
Born on 19 January 1957, the sexagenarian officer retired after 36 years of distinguished service in 2017. Maria started his career in 1981 as an assistant superintendent of police in Akola Maria where he made his mark as a traffic cop and shot into the limelight for his investigative skills when he led a team and cracked the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.
On March 12, 1993, in an event that changed Mumbai forever, 12 coordinated bombs went off in Mumbai at 12 different places which left 257 people dead and well over 700 injured. The then police commissioner of Mumbai AS Samra took a bold move after the serial blasts which surprised many as he chose Rakesh Maria, the then DCP in the Traffic Police department to lead a team of over 150 officials to probe the incident.
According to a report by India Today, whilst spearheading the first meeting, Maria asked his team members to report whatever unusual they found in the city that day. Maria picked up two leads to follow. First was a Maruti van that had been found unattended near Worli’s Seimens factory and was full of automatic weapons and hand grenades. The other lead was a scooter found abandoned at Naigon. Mumbai police soon tracked the Maruti van to Al Hussaini building located in Mahim which was owned by the Memons. Incidentally, the Memons had left the building only two days back. While inspecting one of the rooms in the building Rakesh Maria found a scooter key on a refrigerator. The key matched with the lock of the scooter found unattended at Naigaon. It belonged to Memons and the first connection was evident to the Mumbai police courtesy the brains of Maria.
It is said that he solved the case within 24 hours and in a quest to get to the end of things, Maria has gone on the record to say that the probe team travelled across the length and breadth of the country in search of suspects. The team went to 79 cities across 17 states and arrested about 180 suspects.
When the dastardly 26/11 attacks shocked Mumbai, it was Rakesh Maria who was in charge of the police control room on an ominous day as he monitored all the anti-terrorist operations. After monitoring the operations on the fateful day of attacks Maria subsequently led the 26/11 attacks investigations and was the first police officer to interrogate Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani militant of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). In his autobiography ‘Let Me Say It Now’, Maria has claimed that Pakistan and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had planned to portray the 26/11 terror attack as a part of Hindu terrorism, News18 report said. Maria said all 10 terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab who was arrested alive, were given fake ID cards with Hindu names on them. An ID card with name Sameer Chaudhry was in possession of Kasab. Maria also claimed that Dawood Ibrahim’s D gang was given money to kill Kasab.
He is also credited for getting actor Sanjay Dutt, who is no stranger to controversy to confess to his underworld links. Maria uncovered the network of the Indian Mujahideen and its sleeper cells of homegrown terrorists who had planted bombs in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Mumbai and others in his role as chief of Mumbai’s Anti-Terror Squad or ATS,. He almost arrested Yasin Bhatkal but missed him by a whisker. Bhatkal was later arrested in Nepal.
Son of a film producer, the supercop’s investigation of the 1993 Mumbai blasts invited Bollywood’s attention. A film named “Black Friday” directed by Anurag Kashyap based on S Hussain Zaidi’s book by the same name hit the theatres where seasoned actor Kay Kay Menon brought to life the character of Maria on the big screen whereas Nana Patekar portrayed Rakesh Maria in Ram Gopal Varma’s The Attacks of 26/11. It is also said that Anupam Kher’s character in “A Wednesday” is also loosely inspired by Rakesh Maria.
The soft-spoken police officer cracked the toughest of criminals through his unconventional methods and ensured that the country was safe and protected on his watch. Indeed Indians should look up to supercop Rakesh Maria and his heroic deeds for inspiration and how he went to all lengths to protect his nation. This is nationalism at its finest and its absolute best.