Former top cop’s book on cleaning up Mumbai underworld launched in Chennai

CHENNAI: There are many books and films about the Mumbai underworld in the 1990s. “However, the real underbelly of Bombay and the brutality of it had perhaps never been expressed so far, and this book is like a stark chronicle of a city under siege,” said Yashovardhan Azad, former Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), at the sidelines of launch of ‘The Brahmastra Unleashed’ written by D Sivanandhan, former Mumbai CoP, in Chennai.

The book chronicles the first-person account of the strategic takedown of Mumbai’s underworld in the 90s. The book launch event was held at the MCC School auditorium on Sunday evening.

Former cop Sivanandhan is a Tamil Nadu native and several of his batchmates from Tamil Nadu – retired DGPs and senior police officers were in attendance for the book launch. A 1976-batch IPS officer from the Maharashtra cadre, Sivanandan also served as Commissioner of Police in Thane and Nagpur, as well as Special IG of Anti-Naxal Operations. During his tenure as the head of the Mumbai Crime Branch, he was pivotal in cracking down on some of the most dangerous criminal elements in the country.

Sivanandan recalled how there were over 100 shootouts in Mumbai in 1998 and how the Mumbai police worked towards reducing the numbers.

“Why is this book relevant today? The mafia is everywhere. To handle them, we need to study the process of take-downs of the past. This book is relevant for policemen to find out what happened once upon a time in Mumbai. And, this is the official record,” Sivanandan said.