Yesteryear's dare-devil, swashbuckling and debonair IPS officer A A Khan – who as the then Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief led a team of 100-odd police officers that eliminated dreaded gangster Maya Dolas and four sharpshooters of Dawood holed up in one of the flats in a building at Lokhandwala in north-west Mumbai in a much-discussed shoot-out – is no more.
Khan, who as the — then Additional Commissioner of Police inspired the formation of the Maharashtra ATS and also became its first chief in 1991 -- breathed his last at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital here at around 3 pm on Friday. He had not been keeping well for several days. He was 81.
The term "encounter" came into vogue after the Mumbai police gunned down gangster Manya Surve at Wadala in January 1982. Nine years later – on November 16,1991 — then ATS chief A A Khan led a team of 100-odd policemen to eliminate the dreaded gangster Maya Dolas , Dilip Buwa, Anil Pawar and four other sharpshooters of Dawood who were holed up in one of the flats at Swati Apartments at Lokhandwala, Andheri (West) in north Mumbai in a rapid exchange of fire lasting for nearly four-hour-long hours. More than 450 rounds were fired in the daylight shoot-out.
