Mumbai, May 31 (IANS) D. Sivanandan Monday assumed office as Maharashtra's Director General of Police (DGP), taking over from A.N. Roy, who has retired.

Also taking charge Monday was Sanjeev Dayal, who replaced Sivanandan as Mumbai's Police Commissioner.

Sivanandan, a 1976-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, pipped Hasan Gafoor (Director General, Anti-Corruption Bureau) and P.P. Shrivastava (Director General, Housing) to the post.

Gafoor, an IPS officer of the 1974 batch, was Mumbai's Police Commissioner during the 26/11 terror attack. Sivanandan had replaced him.

Gafoor, the senior most IPS officer in the state after Roy, followed by P.P. Shrivastava, the managing director of the Maharashtra State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation Ltd (popularly known as DGP, Housing) were at the top of the seniority list.

Sivanandan shot to fame during his momentous tenure as head of the Mumbai Crime Branch, when the police began gunning for the underworld in the late 1990s. He has also served as Thane's Police Commissioner.

The four DGP posts in the state are DGP (Maharashtra), DGP (Anti-Corruption Bureau), DGP (Housing) and DGP (Special Operations).

Those in the race for the post of Mumbai Police Commissioner - after Sivanandan's promotion to the top job - included Additional DGP (Special Operations) Sanjeev Dayal, Additional DGP (CID) S.P.S. Yadav, Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh and Additional DGP (Traffic) Arup Patnaik