NAGPUR: The top cop who neutralized Paan Singh Tomar in 1981 - Vijay Raman - passed away at the age of 72 in Pune on Friday. The enterprising tough cop leaves behind a legacy of no-nonsense policing and series of daredevil operations.
"It (death) happened at a hospital in Pune at around 9.40am. He has been ailing for some time now," his wife Veena told TOI.
In a career spanning more than three decades, Raman led many operations, notable among them being neutralizing ex-serviceman and international athlete-turned-bandit Paan Singh Tomar and Parliament attack mastermind Ghazi Baba in 2003.
Ghazi, a Jaish-e-Mohammed commander, was eliminated in Jammu and Kashmir. He was decorated with the President's police medal for gallantry for leading his team to several armed operations against insurgents in Chambal and other dacoit-infested districts.
Though the world remembers Raman for these two encounters, the most cherished operation of the IPS officer of 1975 batch of Madhya Pradesh cadre was the around-the-globe expedition he undertook in a Contessa car. Along with Veena, Raman travelled across the globe in 39 days, seven hours and 55 minutes to enter the Guinness and Limca books of records.
Raman, during an interview in Nagpur in 2017, credited Veena for being the driving force behind the global expedition. Son of an army officer, Raman was born in Kerala and was a gold medallist in law and physics.
Educationist Devika Nadig, who had interviewed Raman in Nagpur, remembered that the encounter of Tomar had triggered a spate of surrenders by Chambal's infamous dacoits.
As SP in Bhind in Madhya Pradesh, Raman had led the operation. "He later moved to Delhi after the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi picked him to head the special protection group for his personal security. Gandhi was impressed by Raman's work during a visit to Bhopal," said Nadig, adding that Raman stayed with Gandhi for a long time. At one time, he was the most photographed officer.
Nadig said Raman once told her that Rajiv Gandhi would not have been assassinated if his SPG cover would not have been withdrawn.
Sources close to Raman's family said a biopic on Paan Singh Tomar had not gone down well with the top cop. "The movie had no mention of Raman's leadership during the 14-hour-long encounter at Ratiyan Ka Pura village in Chambal," they said.
Raman returned to limelight a few years before his retirement in 2012 when the then Union home minister P Chidambaram selected him to helm the anti-Naxal operations with Raipur as his base.
Promoted as special DG of central reserve police force (CRPF), Raman started to flush out the armed guerillas out of their safe havens in the hinterlands of central India. Initial setbacks and differences with the local Chhattisgarh police had left him disillusioned.
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