MUMBAI, DECEMBER 21: During the 10-day Urs festival celebrated every year around this time (beginning on the 13th day of Shaval, the Muslim calendar), lakhs of devotees visit the Mahim Dargah or the Dargah of Baba Makhdoom Ali Mahimi in Mumbai.

Like every year, in the 8,000-strong procession to the dargah on Wednesday were two policemen from each of the 84 police stations across the city. And they were not there to maintain security. They were renewing the collective faith of the Mumbai police in the Sufi saint, a faith that dates back hundreds of years. In fact, each year, it is a representative of the Mumbai police who is the first to offer the ‘chaddar’ (shawl) at the tomb on the first day of the festival.

The procession begins from Mahim Police Station, which is believed to have been once the residence of the saint who lived between 1335 and 1360 AD during the reign of Mughal ruler Ferozeshah Tughlaq. A room adjacent to the office of the senior inspector of Mahim Police Station is a veritable museum with a steel cupboard inside it housing articles believed to have belonged to the saint. The cupboard, it is said, was purchased in 1920 by a British senior police inspector named Raymond Esquire as a tribute to the saint he worshipped.

On Wednesday, a somewhat musty room, which is opened to the general public once every year, transformed into a treasure trove of artefacts among which were the Baba’s chair, a pair of sandals, his hand-written Quran which is considered a calligraphic masterpiece.

The first to visit the Baba’s residence, situated inside the police station, were the personnel of the Mumbai police and their families. This year, Senior Inspector of Mahim Police Station Vilasrao Chandanshive, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Surendra Pandey and Head Constable Nivrutti Babu Pad performed the ‘‘chaddar ceremony’’, carrying the shawl from the police station to the tomb.

The history of Mumbai police’s faith in Makhdoom Ali Mahimi dates back hundred of years. Hazrat Makhdoom Ali Mahimi, a book written by Dr Sayed K.H. Qadri, explains why the Mumbai police believe seeking the saint’s blessings would result in better crime detection as well as happier personal lives. Legend has it that it was a police constable who gave water to the dying saint from his cap. There is also mention in the book of some miraculous assistance policemen once received from an old man, whom they believed was the saint, in fighting smugglers.