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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Newspaper delivery-boy to Maharashtra DGP

Mumbai:  Acclaimed IPS officer Sadanand V. Date, decorated with the President’s Medals and one of the heroes of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes (2008), will take over as Maharashtra’s new Director General of Police on Saturday for a period of two years. Presently, Date is the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and earlier he headed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), besides serving as DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other critical policing...

Newspaper delivery-boy to Maharashtra DGP

Mumbai:  Acclaimed IPS officer Sadanand V. Date, decorated with the President’s Medals and one of the heroes of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes (2008), will take over as Maharashtra’s new Director General of Police on Saturday for a period of two years. Presently, Date is the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and earlier he headed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), besides serving as DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other critical policing positions at the state and centre in the past 35 years. Most recently, he oversaw the investigations into the massacre of tourists in the Pahalgam (April 22, 2025) and other major cases. Born in a humble family in Pune, Date, 58, had a life full of struggles, having lost his father when he was 15, and his mother worked as a cook to earn a living for the family. Hungering for education, the bright Date chipped in by working as a newspaper delivery boy from 1977 for nearly 10 years, to part-finance his studies in school and college. Over the years, he completed his B. Com. and M.Com ., became a Cost Accountant (ICAI), and even earned a PhD in Commerce from the Savitribai Phule Pune University. However, lured by public service he also appeared for his UPSC exams, and cracked it to become an IPS officer in 1999. During his tenure with the CBI, he was sent on a Humphrey Fellowship (2005-2006) to the University of Minnesota where he studied the scourge of ‘while-collar and organised crimes in the USA’, plus the theoretical and practical aspects of dealing with it. Armed with the expertise, on his return to India, he was made the Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing), then headed the elite ‘Force One’ in Maharashtra, designed on the lines of the National Security Guards (NSG), and was the first Commissioner of Police of the newly-created Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar Commissionerate (MBVV). Heroic Act When Mumbai witnessed the dastardly 60-hour long terror strikes from the night of Nov. 26-29, 2008, a plucky Date - armed with the Mumbai Police’s modest weapons and courageous cops - literally chased the 10 Pakistan terrorists, particularly the trigger-happy duo - Ajmal Kasab (nabbed alive) and his equally bloodthirsty associate Abu Ismail Khan – near the Cama and Albless Hospital – where more than 500 women, children, doctors and nurses trembled, waiting for help. Date and his loyal band of Mumbai Police personnel valiantly battled Kasab-Khan, lurking in the darkness of the hospital precincts, firing indiscriminately at the police, before they abandoned that area and moved on to create mayhem at another location. In the shootout which saved many lives of innocents at the hospital, Date and his men were also wounded; in fact, at one point he was even speculated to be dead in some sections of the media. But he not only survived and managed to recover fully he bounced back headlong into his passion of policing and garnered awards and accolades. Among many honours, Date was awarded the President’s Medal (2007) and the President’s Police Medal (2008) for his meritorious and gallantry services to the country. A sweet revenge! When Sadanand V. Date helmed the NIA as its DG, it was time to ‘get even’ with one of the country’s most wanted fugitive criminals, Pakistani-Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was brought to India from the USA, in April 2025. It was a satisfying moment for Date - who toiled months with Indian and US agencies to wade through the legal tangles to ensure his ‘date with Rana’ – as the 26/11 terror strikes plotter landed along with a NIA team in New Delhi.

People praise Army for protecting

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.

Garkhal (J&K): Men and machines of the armed forces worked meticulously to ensure the interception of Kamikaze drones and missiles fired by Pakistani troops targeting Jammu, drawing widespread appreciation from people.


India on Thursday night swiftly thwarted Pakistan's fresh attempts to strike military sites with drones and missiles, including in Jammu and Pathankot, after foiling similar bids at 15 locations across the country's northern and western regions, amid a military conflict between the two neighbours.


Looking after the operational area of Jammu under the command of the 9 Corps, the 26 Infantry Division, nicknamed the "Tiger Division", had put in place a robust air-defence system, virtually carving out an Israel-type Iron Dome to protect Jammu from a Hamas-style attack by Pakistan.


An official who was privy to the developments said it was a meticulous combination of men and machines in defence that thwarted such a massive Pakistani attack.


In the dead of night, Pakistan unleashed its most audacious assault on Jammu since the 1971 war, deploying a swarm of more than a hundred Kamikaze drones and missiles in a sinister attempt to devastate the city. But what followed was a show of unmatched precision, courage and resilience.


"We are indebted to our armed forces who have saved Jammu from a major attack by Pakistan. We appreciate them for their missionary work. We never thought these bombs could be neutralised in the air," Garkhal resident Sikender Singh said.


Singh, whose family, along with more than 500 villagers, has shifted to safer camps set up by the government in Mishriwala on the Jammu outskirts, said had the bombs not been intercepted, they could have caused massive deaths and destruction.


Finest system

The Army, backed by one of the world's finest air-defence systems, intercepted the aerial barrage with astonishing accuracy -- virtually every hostile object was destroyed mid-air. Not a single vital installation was touched. Not a single civilian life was lost.


"Eight missiles from Pakistan were directed at Satwari, Samba, R S Pura and Arnia. All were intercepted and blocked by air-defence units. Visuals over Jammu reminded exactly of a Hamas-style attack on Israel, like multiple cheap rockets," an Army official said.


He said the Pakistan Army is operating and behaving like Hamas. "Drones were sighted at multiple places along the western front -- confirmed to be hostile. They are being effectively engaged by our air-defence systems. Pakistani drone attacks have been reported at various locations along the western borders and are being effectively countered by the Indian armed forces," he added.


The multi-tier air-defence system, with a twin technological security architecture of Russian and Israeli surface-to-air missile setups and the indigenous Akash, was a game changer against such attacks.


Former Jammu and Kashmir director general of police S P Vaid appreciated the armed forces and their technological security systems for effectively dealing with the Pakistani attacks.


He said 50 to 60 air attacks by Pakistan over Jammu and other places were neutralised on Thursday night by the impregnable air-defence system of the country.


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