Sharma Ram, 64, retired as a Delhi Police head constable from Dabri Police Station in 2003. After spending 40 years patrolling the Capital's streets, Ram, though, is back doing what he is best at: patrolling.

His beat now is Shikarpur Village in Jafferpur Kalan (southwest Delhi).

With the bonfire crackling in the background, 10 men -- some as young as 17 and some, like Ram, past retirement — look like they mean business. In traditional kurta pyjamas, the group is armed with sticks, crowbars and whistles. Led by Ram, these men in the village bordering Haryana — the border is less than 10 kilometres — patrol the length and breadth of the village from 10 pm to 4 am.

Called thikri phera, it's a practice, incidentally, dating back to the days of the Raj. "Back then, the village chowkidaars would place a pot, in which all able-bodied men put rocks on which their names were written. These rocks were called thikris," says DCP (south-west) Shalini Singh.

But for the villagers here, all that might as well be textbook stuff. They began thikri phera some eight months ago in collaboration with the Jafferpur Kalan police due to a simple reason: buffalo thefts. Village head Satish Tyagi says the locality saw several incidents of buffalo thefts last year — that is, 2007. With a buffalo coming for "at least Rs 75,000", the villagers, primarily dependent on farming, had little option but to take up their own patrolling. "The assailants stole buffaloes in the dead of night and fled across the border to Haryana, which is just 8 kilometres from here," Tyagi says.

... contd.