26/11 hero date is new NIA chief

New Delhi: He fought Ajmal Kasab and his LeT colleague Abu Ismail, received splinter injuries and held them off till he fell unconscious. On Wednesday, 16 years later, Sadanand Vasant Date was appointed head of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the agency that came up in the aftermath of the three-day terror siege of Mumbai.

Date, a 1990 IPS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, was honoured with the President’s Police medal for gallantry for his role in what has come to be known as the 26/11 attack.

Only fitting perhaps that he takes over as director general of the agency specifically tasked with probing terror cases.

On that fateful night of November 26, 2008, Date, who was

then additional commissioner of police, central region, received a call about terrorists firing indiscriminately near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. A short while earlier, 10 terrorists had sneaked in in a boat and fanned out across Mumbai. By the time,

Date and his team reached CST, Kasab and Ismail, both members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, had left and occupied the roof of the Cama hospital nearby.