Nitin Yadav wanted to grow up to be either an artist or a police officer. Years later, he found a way to be both. Meet the police sketch artist who has helped cracked 400 cases, including the 26/11 terror attack and the Shakti Mills rape case.

Lawrence is a former goalkeeper. No, not the kind who stops footballs from finding the net. Back in the ’90s and early noughties, he was the custodian of narcotics in Goa’s Ashwem. He attempted to control the flow of drugs on the streets.

A police sketch artist discovers that the upshot of a satisfying career busting crime is that the ghosts of the past might disappear… but are never quite exorcised.

As a court reporter with Mumbai’s leading newspapers, I got a ringside view of a crucial period in Sanjay Dutt’s life: the 1993 Mumbai blasts trial. It was difficult to figure him out. Either he was a genuinely humble man, or the artist in him put up a great act knowing full well that he’d get away easy.

The girls – Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and Linda Kasabian – were attracted to Charles Manson. They vied for his attention, almost competing with one another. When he ordered them to go kill seven people over two days, they didn’t hesitate.

Punjab’s Pablos gained notoriety in 2013, crashing onto the scene with a laundry list of crimes and a flamboyance that seems straight out of a Narcos episode. Their devil-may-care persona, coupled with legit street cred, earned them a following on Facebook.

In our increasingly cosmopolitan cities, where archaic psyches cohabit with urban mindsets, we urgently need a police force that understands the world the Talwars once occupied.

In August 2007, I scored an interview with Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar. It ended with D-Company goons chasing me down the streets of Mumbai, baying for my blood.