Women break Chambal dacoits' glass ceiling

Women break Chambal dacoits' glass ceiling
VINAY MENON

BHIND, DEC 17: In Bhind, Etawah and even in the crowded landscape of Gwalior, former bandits who once terrorised the Chambal valley are stroking their long, flowing moustaches and are wondering about a new menace. Women.Long after Phoolan Devi disappeared from the ravines, no less than a dozen women dacoits are frequenting the villages, police registers, most-wanted lists and, of course, the nightmares of male honchos.

Kusuma Nain, Seema Parihar, Lovely Pandey, Basanti Pandey, Mala Tiwari, Munni Devi, Krishna Devi, Prabha Katiyar, Bina Dixit, Anita and Rajkanya the list is long. They are now familiar names for the police and have been terrorising the villages around the valley for three years now.

Most of them walked into the ravines with their stories of traumatised past, but perhaps inspired by the saga of a woman who terrorised the area in khakis and a bandana to become the Bandit Queen.

Kusuma, though in her mid-thirties, the police say, is a veteran. Her career began in 1984 and she now callsherself Dyasu Sundari. She is involved in over 35 cases of murder, robbery and dacoity, and carries a reward of Rs 25,000 on her head. ``I caught a glimpse of her during an encounter. She looked much younger than what she is believed to be, dressed in jeans and shirt with a band across her head. Quite the way Phoolan would dress up,'' says Inspector Ashok Singh Bhadoriya who heads a special crack force set up to track down dacoits in the Gwalior Chambal region.

Rajkanya's fiefdom covers most of Bhind and its neighbouring areas in north-eastern Madhya Pradesh. ``She is barely in her early twenties but is already a member of the Ramesh Kushwah gang operating here,'' says Superintendent of Police (Bhind) Srinivasa Rao. ``It appears Rajkanya joined the dacoits merely out of a craze. There was no family problem, or victimisation that compelled such a move. The lure of being with dreaded dacoits like Kushwah seems to be the only apparent reason.''

The Chambal valley is abuzz with their tales. Of Kusuma, whomakes her victims press her legs and demands a massage from them. Of Seema, who ties up her captives and beat them in their private parts. Of the beautiful Lovely, who fell in love with a dacoit and came back from the ravines to kill her own son in the previous marriage.

The woman is now not just another gang member. The police say she is the finance manager of the gang and is known to have considerable say in the operations whom to kidnap, from where and what the ransom amount should be.The police are baffled by the trend of increasing number of women dacoits.

``It is amazing the way women are joining dacoit gangs. One fails to understand or justify the psyche behind such a trend,'' says Inspector General of Police (Chambal Range) Vijay Raman.

Raman should know. He is a veteran in the region and has tackled the likes of dreaded dacoits like Malkan Singh and Mohar Singh. ``It was unheard of in the late '70s and early '80s when the dacoit problem was at its peak. The only exception being Phoolan,'' hesays.

As far as the former dacoits are concerned, woman is blasphemy. For them, dacoity was sacred and performed with ritualistic fervour they kept away from wine and women. ``He (true dacoit) never harms the poor, never partakes of wine, is a strict vegetarian and abhors the company of women in his gang,'' says Ramesh Pandit, a dacoit who belonged to the dreaded Hari Baba gang and who still moves around with security officers provided by the police.

``In aurto ko rang baith gaya hai. Sochet hai `main bhi Phoolan banoongi,'' snorts Udai Singh Gadaria, a former dacoit, cooling his heels in Gwalior Central jail at present. Malkan Singh, who is now part of the Chambal foklore, adds: ``It is a new trend that is totally unacceptable. These woman happily live with 50-odd men in the gangs with no complaints. It is only when they are caught that they wail that they were forced to live such a life, after suffering much ignominy by way of rape and torture in the hands of the dacoits.''