Daya Nayak: From providing creative inputs for Ram Gopal Varma’s Company to inspiring films like Ab Tak Chappan and Kagaar, Nayak, whose career may be in a flux, has emerged as one of Bollywood’s most common reference cop, with even a Kannada film, Encounter, based on his life.

Rakesh Maria: Apart from having an inspiring performance based on him by Kay Kay in Black Friday as the young police officer heading the investigations into the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts ACP Maria also happens to be one of the first police officers to be portrayed as himself and in the lead in a Hindi cop film, instead of being a mere larger than life alleged inspiration like his predecessors.

Amarjeet Singh Samra: The ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner during whose tenure the Mumbai bomb blasts case was solved may not have had as meaty a role as Maria in Black Friday, but his signature turban and matter-of-fact speak did more than amply remind us of the first Sikh commissioner of the Mumbai police, and one of its most questioned faces through the blast investigations.

Aftab Ahmad Khan: ACP Aftab Ahmad Khan’s controversial six-hour long encounter with five members of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala Complex in 1991, is the plot of the soon to be released Shootout at Lokhandwala that has Sanjay Dutt reprise his character onscreen. His team’s dare devil policemen like inspector Kaviraj Patil and constable Javed Shaikh are played by Suneil Shetty and Arbaaz Khan, while Abhishek Bachchan plays police inspector Abhishek Mahatre, who had a key role in the shootout.

... contd.