Ex-cop to whom Nanavati surrendered dies at 96 TNN | Updated: Aug 2, 2017, 06:56 AM IST
MUMBAI: John Lobo, former deputy commissioner of Mumbai police who naval officer Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati had famously surrendered to in 1959 after pumping bullets into his wife's lover, died at his Bandra home on July 31. He was 96. "He passed away peacefully," said his daughter, Amelia Correa [https://standrewscollege.ac.in/faculty-staff/dr-amelia-correa/], a professor at St Andrew's College, who used to visit him daily. "He was watching TV and talking to his brother. After his brother left, he complained of indigestion and uneasiness," she said, describing the last few moments of the nonagenarian. Lobo, whose wife died in 1997, is survived by three sons and two daughters. In an interview to TOI last year, Lobo had described the Nanavati case--which had a heady cocktail of love, betrayal and murder--as "the eternal triangle." It had on one side Nanavati, scion of a Parsi family, and on the other, his British wife Sylvia, duped by promises by the casanova Prem Ahuja, a Sindhi businessman. "He was a fine tall specimen of an officer with a resounding voice. He walked in and told me, 'I've shot a man'," Lobo had told TOI about Nanavati who walked into his office at Crawford Market on April 27, 1959. After the case ended in 1961, Lobo -- born and bred in Mumbai -- moved to Delhi where he served as chief security liaison officer for Indira Gandhi and became CBI director. He retired in 1979 and settled in Bandra. * * * Lobo is one of 3 most-remembered CBI officers: Julio Ribeiro TNN | Aug 3, 2017, 02:53 AM IST It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon in August last year. John Lobo, former deputy commissioner of Bombay police, who naval officer Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati had walked up to and surrendered in 1959 just after pumping bullets into his wife's lover, was lounging on a wooden chair with a book, at his home in Bandra Bandstand. His hearing was a tad impaired, but Lobo was remarkably fit for a nonagenarian as he held out his hand for a firm handshake, welcoming TOI into his favourite corner -- a balcony overlooking the quiet expanse of the sea. In his final days, this was where he spent most of his time, listening to the wind and watching waves crash onto the shore. A year later, on Wednesday this week, Lobo's mortal remains were laid to rest at the nearby St Andrew's Church, a Portuguese-era structure, at which his friend, fellow-top cop and fellow-Goan, Julio Ribeiro, delivered a eulogy. Lobo, though born in Bombay, was ancestrally from Gaunsavaddo in Siolim, which he visited regularly, even during the height of his career. Elderly neighbours recall a peculiar detail about the former CBI boss -- there were never constables, or any kind of security, outside his house. His was a particularly distinguished family -- one brother, Ignatius, was bishop of Belgaum, while another, Cyriaco, was head of education at the Indian Navy. His other siblings are Olive, Anthony and Theresa. Lobo was humility personified. As he and his wife embarked on long, impossibly brisk walks through the village, he greeted everyone, from bhatkar to farmer, with equal respect. But the serene bylanes of Siolim, where the Lobo family spent many a Goan summer, were a stark contrast to John's frenetic life in police duty, particularly when the sensational Nanavati case consumed Mumbai with its heady cocktail of love, betrayal and murder. Lobo, who was 95 when TOI last met him, was a patient raconteur. His memory hadn't dimmed, his voice without a tremor and vignettes of his past tripping off his tongue with considerable ease. "He was a fine tall specimen of an officer with a resounding voice," he said, recounting his first impression of Nanavati who spoke "in a tone given to command" when he walked into his office in Crawford Market on that sweltering afternoon of April 27, 1959. Lobo was planning a family holiday in the Nilgiris when Nanavati came calling. "He did not appear very ruffled. He walked in tall and told me, 'I've shot a man'. It was a short conversation and he seemed to be in a hurry, as if trying to clear himself of a weight," recalls Lobo, who helped Nanavati to a glass of water before summoning his colleagues to arrest him. Unlike undertrials lodged in police lockups, Nanavati was accommodated in one of their office rooms. "He was a high ranking naval officer who surrendered after committing a crime. He was quite straightforward and we showed him courtesy," explained Lobo, who had to testify in court once. "I remember how lots of people, particularly young ones enamoured by Nanavati, lined up from Flora Fountain to the high court with flowers to throw at him." Two decades later, in 1979, Lobo retired to life in Bandra, at 58. "A retreat I took to like a duck takes to water," he said. As he looked back at his life of nine decades, he chuckled at the thought of how a student of English literature at St Xavier's College lacking "sturdy physique" became a policeman. Not the kind to settle into superannuated anonymity, Lobo spent his free time chronicling such meanderings into his book. Lobo lost his wife two decades ago, but the void was filled by three sons, two daughters and a motley crew of grandchildren who kept cutting into his solitary days that began with a walk to the chapel, reading newspapers, watching hockey and listening to Blue Danube by the balcony. Barring a weakness for baked pies, "a creature of routine," is what made him a spry 95-year-old, his daughter said. During his eulogy at the funeral, Ribeiro remembered the remark of a senior colleague. "There are three officers who are most remembered in the CBI, and John Lobo was one of them," he said. "It makes me proud as a fellow Goan!" * * *