Hussain Zaidi is India's number one crime writer. He is the author of several bestselling books, including
Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia,
Mafia Queens of Mumbai,
Black Friday and
My Name Is Abu Salem. A veteran of investigative, crime and terror reporting in the media, he has worked for the
Asian Age,
Mumbai Mirror,
Mid-Day and
Indian Express. He is also the associate producer for the HBO movie
Terror in Mumbai, based on the 26/11 terror strikes. He lives with his family in Mumbai.
At a time when Mumbai was plagued by underworld gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim, Iqbal Kaskar and Chhota Rajan, the batch of 1983 from the Police Training School (PTC) in Nashik-trained by the legendary Arvind Inamdar-produced a group of prominent encounter specialists who have been credited with bringing back the rule of law in the city.
Famed even within this batch, trigger-happy senior police inspector Pradeep Sharma understood that to save the city from the clutches of the underworld, he would need to dilute rival gangs. The Class of 83 delves deep into the most famous (or infamous) encounters conducted by Sharma and his batch mates. Pradeep Sharma was arrested by the same department he had served for two-and-a-half decades. He faced the ignominy of jail, clubbed in the same cell as the criminals he had arrested. However, he fought for his honour, was acquitted and reinstated into service.
In The Class of 83, S. Hussain Zaidi presents a one-of-a-kind story of a policeman's triumphs, struggles and redemption.
