Senior IPS officer and 26/11 terror attack hero Sadanand Vasant Date on Saturday took charge as Director General of Maharashtra Police. He was heading the National Investigation Agency (NIA) till recently before being repatriated to his home cadre on the request of the Maharashtra government. The 1990-batch officer was appointed as DGP on December 31. Date, 59, accepted the charge from Rashmi Shukla, the first woman DGP of Maharashtra who retired on Saturday, at the state police headquarters here. He will have a tenure of two years as the head of the over 2 lakh-strong Maharashtra police force. Known as an upright officer, Date was serving in Mumbai as Additional Commissioner of Police (Central Region) when Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists from Pakistan attacked multiple locations in the city on November 26, 2008. He led a police team that pinned down terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail on the rooftop of Cama Hospital in south Mumbai. Despite being severely injured by grenade splinter