The case was cracked in 48 hours flat courtesy an unexploded scooter at Dadar and an abandoned Maruti van at Worli.

However, Maria chooses to be modest, “I was plain lucky”. The Mumbai police needed the same luck when he was summoned exactly after a decade to investigate the twin blasts of Zaveri Bazar and Gateway of India in 2003. Maria cracked it once again with the same chutzpah and panache.

At 49 now, Maria’s skills are misplaced as the special inspector general of police (IG) — training, biding his time in constabulary recruitment in the state police. Since the investigations, Maria got 2 promotions and 5 transfers.

In retrospect, Maria feels that the Muslim youths who take to terrorism are a misguided lot. “We should send across a message to them —that a single mindless act is enough to shatter the lives of their family too.”

The CBI eventually took over the investigation and cut down the paperwork to expedite the trial. “The Mumbai police had made a list of over 3,500 witnesses, while we pruned it to 686, which is less than one-fifth of the total number. If it took 14 years with these many witnesses; the trial could have continued for 70 years if we had gone ahead with the original list,” observes DSP in the Special Task Force of the Central Bureau of Investigation Raman Tyagi.

Another factor that cut down the trial time was a prudent decision taken by STF CBI, chief, Omprakash Chatwal. Instead of proving the death of 257 people and injuries to 713 people, Chatwal cut down the number to 2 deaths and 2 injured per site. In cases such as this — proving every death becomes a long winding process. This not only facilitated prosecution but also expedited the trial.