High-profile IPS officer Rakesh Maria - who had led the investigations in cases like the March 1993 serial blasts and the 26/11 terror attacks but was shunted out of his post as the Mumbai Police Commissioner in September 2015 after he took "excessive interest" in the investigations into the Sheen Bora murder case - retired from his service on Tuesday.

Sixty-year-old Maria, whose last posting was Director General (Home Guards) and Commandant General (Civil Defence), hung up his boots after 36 years of service in the Maharashtra police.

Maria retired on a quiet note, an end that was quite unlike the high-profile stints with the Maharashtra in various capacities during the last two decades.

One of the first things that Maria would do is to publish a book that he is currently writing on the investigations into the big cases solved by the Mumbai police and their counterparts elsewhere in Maharashtra.   

A 1982 batch IPS officer, Maria is the only officer who had held all positions in the Crime Branch - Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection), Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) and Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), before he was on February 8, 2014 appointed as the Mumbai Police Commissioner, a post he occupied for 19 months.

Known for his excellent detection skills, Maria - as the then Deputy Commissioner (Crime), Maria had investigated the March 12, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts - the first terror attack on the country's commercial capital. He had cracked the case within 24 hours of the serial bombings case and began effecting arrests of persons involved in it.  

As an Additional Commissioner (crime), he subsequently led the investigations into the August 25, 2003 twin blasts at Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar and achieved a breakthrough in the case within 72 hours of the bombings with the arrest of terror suspects from a city slum.