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| India-Pakistan |
| Leading Indian bandit's legacy grows |
| 2008-03-26 |
| JHINNA, India - Wearing a bulletproof vest, the police officer balanced himself precariously on a rock and looked through binoculars at the thick bamboo and teak jungle growth ahead. Twenty-two other officers, equipped with AK-47s and night-vision devices, spread themselves around in the day's fading light, some crouching, others hiding behind trees and rocks. "Do you see any bandit movement, sir?" an officer asked from behind a tree. "Not yet, but we have information he was here yesterday," responded the first man. In a two-hour search that followed, the officers combed a patch of dry jungle in the central Indian plateau, looking for an elusive bandit called Thokia, Hindi slang for "the one who shoots." The operation was a surreal mix of medieval and modern tactics. To find their way, the team relied on village whispers about bandit sightings and Google Earth satellite images. On this evening, they came up dry, again. "Ambika Prasad Thokia is the most wanted bandit in this area today," said Beni Prasad Ahirwal, a police officer in the search party. "There are 64 cases of murder and kidnap against him. There is a $12,000 reward on his head. He cannot hide in these jungles for long because we are making his life hell." Madhya Pradesh, a region of jungles, forbidding rocky ravines and grinding poverty, has harbored bandits and renegades since at least the 12th century, historians say. From 1957 to 2001, nearly 5,700 bandits have come and gone in the province. In the past five years, Thokia, 33, has become part of the local folklore, a Robin Hood figure. He and his gang of 20 have killed several police officers and other bandits. They have abducted businessmen and public works contractors for ransom. They also have managed to build a reputation of never hurting poor people. "All bandits use the caste structure to become powerful," said Dinesh Kumar Singh, an assistant professor of political science at Jiwaji University, Gwalior. "Members of the caste community vicariously derive social prestige from the bandit. They feel proud that one of their own is invoking fear among the policemen." One of five children, Thokia was born to a lower-caste farmer with a small plot of land in Lokhariha village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. When he was a young man, the story goes, his sister was raped. He pleaded with local police and the village council to arrest the perpetrator, but they refused. So at 23, he pledged revenge: He killed the brothers of the rapist, but the suspect still is free. Many villagers refer to Thokia as "Brother." Some say he is a good man who was forced by circumstances to take up arms. For members of his kurmi-patel caste group, he is a benevolent protector who settles petty village disputes and donates money at weddings. By most accounts, he also is the highest-educated bandit in Madhya Pradesh in recent years, having finished half of an undergraduate degree in commerce. He worked part time with a pharmacist learning about health care, and sometimes gives free medicine to villagers in need, thus earning another of his sympathetic names, "Doctor." For businessmen in the area, he is simply a bloodthirsty bandit. He sends out life-threatening ransom demands on his own private letterhead that says "King of Bandits" in Hindi on top. Police say businessmen are so fearful that they often quietly hand over the money to him without informing the authorities. A handwritten extortion note addressed to a construction company, procured from police files, begins with an invocation of the Hindu goddess Kali and demands the equivalent of more than $100,000. "Or else, your machines will be destroyed, your men will be abducted and you will not be allowed to work in the district," the note ends. The police do not even have a recent photo of Thokia, relying on a picture from his teens. But their investigation files are full of Thokia trivia. He is 5 feet 3 inches tall and wears pants that are 30 inches around at the waist; his tennis shoes are size 10. He wears four gold rings and a thick, spiraling chain around his neck. On his right arm is an egg-shaped, dark brown mark. |
| Posted by:john frum |