Oh Maria!

J Dey the editor, investigation, discusses the curious cases of Mumbai Police's joint commissioner Rakesh Maria and terrorist Qasab

J Dey the editor, investigation, discusses the curious cases of Mumbai Police's joint commissioner Rakesh Maria and terrorist Qasab

Joint Commissioner of Police (Mumbai) Rakesh Maria is clearly among the latest victims of 26/11 terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Qasab. Maria is done with the filing of the chargesheet connected with the November 26 terror attacks, but he just can't get Qasab out of his mind, and this is clearly is affecting his phenomenal memory. He is busy these days and meets journalists only at a scheduled time in the evening. Journalists call the brief meetings a "chhota refill".

Qasab katha: Mumbai Police's Joint Commissioner, Rakesh Maria, must have uttered Qasab's name a few thousand times after the terrorist was remanded to custody last year File Pic

He seemed a little disturbed when my friend and I asked him about the ongoing investigations in the Qasab case.

"I was invited to a school recently, and the students wanted to know about Qasab. I go a party and again people are curious about the terrorist. He is all people want me to talk about. I seriously need to go for a detox," said Maria.

The burly investigator must have uttered Qasab's name a few thousand times after the terrorist was remanded to his custody last year. For the last 80 odd days, Maria has been briefing and debriefing the press about Qasab every evening. He has also been forced to parry questions on the terrorist. It is not surprising Maria wants to forget Qasab for ever. The 1983 batch IPS officer who was known for his remarkable memory is also showing signs of forgetting things.

The general buzz among reporters visiting him daily is that the chief investigator is refuting his own stories. A story discussed the previous evening is often denied the next day.

This is, of course, understandable. He has been in the high-pressure seat for some time. He is bogged down with the more than 11,000 pages of the charge sheet he was struggling with for the past few weeks. I am sure the Indian Mujahideen and Qasab have consumed a major part of his valuable memory space.

For the first time in 10 years, I saw Maria struggling to remember a name. He had to call the investigating officer to get the required information. This has rarely happened in the past.