Aftab Ahmed Khan


Aftab Ahmed Khan 'IPS' is a former Indian Police Service officer, turned politician from Mumbai, India, noted for his encounter killings of gangsters from the Mumbai organized crime syndicates.

Early life and background

His father Dr. A.S. Khan had been a noted Public Prosecutor in undivided Hyderabad State and then in Bombay State, practising at the Aurangabad Sessions Court and the High Court.

Career

An officer of the Indian Police Service, Khan was a Deputy Inspector General of Police in Maharashtra state in the 1980s. He shot into fame with the shootout at the Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri, in which seven gangsters including Maya Dolas and Dilip Buwa were killed in 1991.
Khan was commissioned as an IPS officer in 1963 in the Maharashtra Cadre. He served as SDPO of Junnar and Baramati, Addl. SP of Ahmednagar District, Addl. SP Nashik, Deputy Commandant of SRPF Group II at Pune, SP of Satara District, DCP of Mumbai Police Detection Unit , Commandant of Group VIII at Mumbai, SP of Amravati District, SSP of Thane District in which capacity he was involved in the raising of the Thane Commissionerate as Addl. Commissioner in the rank of SSP and later DIG, DIG of CRPF on deputation in Punjab, Joint Director of IB in 1986-87 on Central Deputation, Addl. CP of Mumbai Police Crime Branch, DIG , Addl. CP and Jt. Cp of Mumbai Police. He retired 2 years prematurely as ADG of Maharashtra Police in 1997.
In the mid-1990s, Khan sought to build on his media image by joining politics. Initially expressing interest in joining the Samajwadi Party, he eventually went with the Janata Dal, with whom he stood elections in the Mumbai North-west constituency in 1998.
Currently he helps run a private security agency that he set up in 1996 along with his son.

In popular culture

In 2007, producer Apoorva Lakhia directed the Bollywood crime film Shootout at Lokhandwala, which was based on the 1991 Lokhandwala Complex shootout led by Aftab Ahmed Khan. Khan was also portrayed in the film as Additional Police Commissioner Shamsher Khan played by Sanjay Dutt. Also, Aftab Ahmed Khan played a supporting role in the film as a police commissioner.