How 'Indian James Bond' Ajit Doval had managed riot-hit Thalassery

KANNUR: The brain behind India's 'offensive defence' in response to Pakistan's terror strike, Ajit Kumar Doval, a Kerala Cadre IPS officer of the 1968 batch, had a brief stint as the assistant superintendent of Police in Thalassery, following the notorious riot that is still considered a blot in the history of the erstwhile capital of the British Malabar.

According to the police records, the IPS officer, who is considered the 'Indian James Bond', worked in Thalassery for a brief period from January 2, 1972 to June 9 1972.

A young officer with just three years' experience, Doval, who was then the ASP in Kottayam, was assigned the duty by the then home minister K Karunakaran, according to veteran police sources.

Though the Thalassery riot, in which the RSS was accused of targeting the Muslims and their mosques, and the CPM came to the rescue of the Muslim community, lasted for only a couple of days after it began on 28 December 1971, Karunakaran wanted to avert it escalating further, following which the young IPS officer was assigned the duty.

Immediately after reaching Thalassery, his priority was to retrieve the properties looted by the rioters, remembers Pulikkodan Narayanan, who was the SI in Kannur Town police station during that time.

He also brought the looters before the society and charted out effective action plans to curb the violence and everything was back to normalcy within one week, he said.

"Though I was not in Thalassery at that time, I have heard of him and it is said that he was a daring police officer with great dreams," said AK Vasudevan, a former IPS officer who was the commandant of the Malabar Special Police (MSP), which was deployed in Thalassery following the riots. If K Karunakaran selects somebody for a sensitive assignment, that this was the indication that he had the mettle in it," said Vasudevan, adding that Karunakaran's ability to judge people was very sharp.

However, he worked in Thalassery for five months and he later joined the central service, which marked the beginning of his career as the 'Indian James Bond'.