The unique gift Nehru got on his 70th birthday

Do you know what unique gift Jawaharlal Nehru received on his 70th birthday from Madhya Pradesh police?

The news of death of dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh, who went on to achieve cult status post Sholay.

This is one of the several anecdotes and incidents that find mention in a biographical account of Border Security Force's founder director general late KF Rustamji.

Titled The British, The Bandits And The Bordermen, the book is based on more than 3,500 pages of Rustamji's diaries, and the articles present a first-person account about some of the tumultuous developments like Partition, Chinese aggression and the Indo-Pak war.

"Nehru's 70th birthday was observed with great eclat on November 14, 1959. When I met him in Delhi, I wondered what I, his former CSO for six long years and now the chief of the Madhya Pradesh police, could present him with," writes Rustamji in the book published by Wisdom Tree and edited by former director of National Police Academy PV Rajgopal.

"Gabbar Singh and his gang had been killed in a bold encounter in Bhind district the previous evening, that is November 13. I conveyed the news and that was the gift that the Madhya Pradesh police presented. He appeared happy," he recalls.

According to Rustamji, Gabbar was a nose-chopper and vowed to cut off the noses of 116 people.

"He had already succeeded with 26. He was one of the most brutal in the ignoble gallery of the Madhya Pradesh dacoits," the book says.