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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.

Unrest within Mahayuti

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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