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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.

Three ways to avoid Traffic issues in Pune

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The road widening program taken up by Pune Municipal Corporation is very helpful to ease the traffic problem as a short-term measure. For long term, the following measures are suggested: Educaion, Engineering and Enforcement


Children are the drivers of tomorrow, they learn many of their behaviors and attitudes from the adults of today. We regard citizen education as being central to the delivery of our core values, in the changing of habits and behaviors and supporting new initiatives and schemes to make our roads safer. We should launch resources to assist in this program of safety education offering resources that can be used by the Agency or its stakeholders to promote a safer network for all.


With Citizenship becoming an ever higher priority for the curriculum in both Primary and Secondary schools, we believe that improving and increasing our citizen education will contribute to improvements in safety on our roads. The NBF hasn’t stopped its engineering role; however more people are asking for better information: “Why is this happening?” “What are its benefits”, “How will this make our roads less congested and safer?”


Engineering steps

There should not be any stop at all in rush hours on few roads. We see lot of shop owner and society, apartment members park their vehicles on road causes traffic jam. We should avoid it. We should implement limited parking on few roads.


We should use separate bus lane for PMT stop. It is observed that the bus parking cause traffic snarls in peak hour. Close down unwanted cut of crossing the lanes. Build railing on road divider to prevent crossing road from anywhere. 


Remove encroachment

We observed rush hours between 9-11 am and 5-7 pm. If we can change the office timings of some government and private establishments we could solve the traffic problem. It is observed traffic is less on holidays.


We suggest that metro stations should have adequate parking facilities and each route should reach out of PMC limit. Flyovers need to be built at several places. Earmark separate space for auto rockshaws. Free footpaths from encroachments. Operate buses on time. No parking or halting should be allowed in a chowk.


(The writer is the President of an NGO Nirman Bharati. Views personal.)

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