Bhubaneswar: Rohit shetty, the prime mover of the Copverse – Singham, Singham 2 and Singham Again, Sooryavanshi, Simba et al – has announced making a biopic on former IPS officer and Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria.
As per the announcement, Bollywood star John Abraham will play the character of top cop Rakesh Maria in the biopic.
As the Copeverse showman has decided to produce a film on a real cop, here’s is all about who the top cop Rakesh Maria is?
GOOD COP
Maria, a fan of Sherlock Holmes, is also a voracious reader of fictional criminals – from Ra's al Ghul to James Bond supervillains; from authors Jeffrey Archer to Ed McBain.
He is considered as an outstanding investigator. Read the instance below,
Year 1994: CBI detained one Dr Jalis Ansari in connncetion with 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. Unable to crack the man who would later came to be known as "Dr Bomb of Bombay", the central agency called a young crime branch officer.
DCP Rakesh Maria, a 1981 batch IPS officer, arrived and within half an hour, he had Ansari confess to over 60 blasts at gurdwaras and police stations between 1989 and 1994. And to do this, Maria didn’t become Singham. He did so the Holmeian way.
Maria has the reputation of unraveling of the 1993 bomb blast case. In 1993, he was assigned to the inquiry of serial blasts case by then CP A.S. Samra. His sharp investigator skills led to dug out the fact that bombs have been planted in abandoned vehicles.
As per his batchmate Meeran Borwankar, ADG (Prisons), Maharashtra, "Rakesh is an ace investigator and interrogator. He is very passionate about his job. Police officers and staff love him. He leads from the front, he always has."
MARIA FILMED EARLIER
This IPS officer is said to have cultivated an aura "of quiet strength", for which actor Anupam Kher says he adopted for his character in the film A Wednesday.
In an interview then, Anupam Kher had said, "In Maria's presence, you believe all will be well."
- In Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday, Kay Kay Menon played the role of Rakesh Maria.
- Nana Patekar essayed Rakesh Maria in Ram Gopal Verma’s The Attacks of 26/11
- In Scoop, the netflex series, character Ramesh Malik is based on Rakesh Maria.
MARIA POLICING
This top IPS officer believes in the following cardinals of policing.
- Approachable
- Non-threatening yet dominant on streets
MARIA SUCCESS STORY
- He got Sanjay Dutt to confess his crimes to his disbelieving father Sunil Dutt
- He pronounced starlet Maria Susairaj a suspect even as she came in to request a probe into the disappearance of her lover Neeraj Grover
- He introduced psychological profiling for officers holding key posts
- He cracked blasts cases while designated to handle traffic,
- As Anti Terrorism Squad chief, he probed the urban interest in largely rural Naxalism.
THE CONTROVERSIES – OH MARIA!
- Suketu Mehta portrayed him as "the tormentor" Ajay Lal in Maximum City
- IB claimed that Mirza Himayat Baig was wrongly held by his crime branch in German Bakery blasts' case
- Vinita Kamte blamed him for the death of her husband ACP Ashok Kamte in the 26/11 attack in her book To The Last Bullet
- His appointment to the post of Mubai Polce Commissioner in Feb 2014 courted a controversy. The then Congress-NCP govt superseded two senior IPS officers to appoint him as the CP of Mumbai.
