Rakesh Maria in Mumbai on Sunday. (PTI)

Mumbai, Feb. 16: The cop who cracked the 1993 serial blasts and investigated nearly every major terror attack on Mumbai, including the 26/11 siege, took over as the city’s police chief today, ending a two-week vacuum and the scramble it had set off.

“Every IPS officer dreams of becoming the Mumbai police commissioner. It’s like a dream coming true,” PTI quoted Rakesh Maria as saying after the 1981-batch officer assumed charge formally.

The appointment has upset several officers who were hoping to bag the post. Vinod Kamble, a 1980-batch officer who was appointed Thane commissioner yesterday, has refused to take charge so far. Satish Mathur, Maria’s batchmate, has gone on leave. Javed Ahmed, a 1979-batch officer who was promoted as director-general this week, is threatening to resign. He was ruled out of the race following his promotion because the commissioner is of the rank of additional director-general.

Government sources had confirmed yesterday that Maria, on whom the investigator played by Kay Kay Menon in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday and the character of police officer Ajay Lal in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City are modelled, would succeed Satyapal Singh as commissioner. But the official announcement came only today.

It was Singh’s resignation on January 30 to join the BJP that had set off the scramble. The former police chief had around two years of service left and Maria was widely expected to take charge once he retired in 2015. But the sudden resignation left the post wide open, with even Maharashtra’s ruling allies Congress and the NCP backing different candidates.

While the Congress wanted either Ahmed or Kamble in the post, the NCP lobbied for Maria. The delay left the Mumbai police chief’s post vacant for two weeks, perhaps for the first time in recent years.

The BJP today raised the caste question, asking why a Dalit candidate — Kamble — had been ignored.

But Maria was looking ahead to the challenges before his force. “Urban terrorism, organised crime, security of women, elders and children are the major challenges before us. But one thing we are going to stress on is zero tolerance to street crimes,” he said.

The 57-year-old, who has around three years of service left, had investigated the March 12, 1993, serial blasts, the first big terror attack in India. He was the DCP (crime).

As inspector-general, Maria handled the Ramesh Kini murder case that put Raj Thackeray, then in the Shiv Sena, in the dock when Sena-BJP was in power.

As additional commissioner, Maria cracked the 2003 twin bombings at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar and arrested Ashrat Ansari and his wife Fahmida who had planted bombs inside two taxis. It was considered one of his best detections as neither Ansari nor his wife had a crime record. Maria’s team had traced them using pure plainclothes surveillance and informer network

Maria manned the Mumbai police main control room, co-ordinating the response of the force during the 26/11 attack.

As the head of the anti-terror squad, Maria investigated the German Bakery bombings in Pune, the July 2011 triple bombings at Opera House, Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar, and the serial bombings at Junglee Maharaj Road in Pune in August 2012.