Word: dacoit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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They travel in gangs through the hills of the state of Madhya Pradesh, robbing wayfarers as did highwaymen of old. Villagers admire them, movies glorify their exploits. For eight centuries, India's dacoits (dakoo is the Hindi word for bandit) have been the buccaneering heroes of pulp-magazine adventures. But none is more compelling than the tale of Phoolan Devi, 27. Over the past four years she has become her country's most notorious dacoit. Once pursued by 2,000 police, she has been charged with 70 cases of banditry and is suspected of some 50 murders. Fanciful...
...subsequent rise to criminal eminence was swift: she fell in with a dacoit named Babu Gujar, seduced his lieutenant Vikram Mallaha and, while bathing Gujar one evening, stabbed him to death. Thus Mallaha became chieftain, Phoolan second in command. Dressed in blue jeans and a multicolored turban, brandishing a stolen bullhorn and a rifle, she quickly earned a reputation as a deadly shot. When Mallaha's restive followers killed him, Phoolan formed her own gang. On Feb. 14, 1981, to avenge her lover's murder, she and her marauders gunned down 20 apparently innocent citizens in the village...