India’s Bandit Queen Wants A Quiet Life

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28397, 2 October 1957, Page 15

India’s Bandit Queen Wants A Quiet Life

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

AGRA (North India)

India’s notorious bandit queen, a 26-year-old former dancing girl known as Putli (“the Doll’), who is wanted for at least a dozen killings, has written to the Prime Minister, Mr Nehru, asking him to help her to return to a normal, civilised life where she can live free from the fear of the police and other rival gangs. For the last six years, this short, thin, one-armed woman—latest reports say that Putli had her left arm amputated after a recent gun battle with the police near Gwalior, in the State of Madhya Pradesh—has terrorised the towns and villages of an area of some 8000 square mile of wild jungle country in North-central India.

Now, it appears, she is growing tired of her life of murder, robbery and violence and wants to settle down as a normal member of society. Late last year, Putli is said to have written to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, asking them to help her to reform. If they did not, she said, she would have to continue her life of banditry and eventually die a violent death. She is said to have sent these letters by special courier to New Delhi with instructions to discuss terms for the surrender of herself and her gang. If the letters were ever delivered, neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Min ister ever admitted it. But later Putli sent a copy of the letter which she said she had written to several Indian newspapers, and this was duly published. In this letter, the bandit queen gave a full description of her life and of how she had gallen into the hands of the bandits. She also levelled a series of accusations of bribery against the police and rounded off her tirade by telling Mr Nehru that various Dacoit gangs in the area had been approached by a certain political party during the 1952 General Elections to enlist their help. This party, and Putli named it confidentially to Mr Nehru, paid the Dacoits, she said, to terrorise the inhabitants of the country towns and villages to vote in its favour. So far as is known, Putli never got an answer to her letter, for the police of three States are still hunting her down as relentlessly and unsuccessfully as ever.

Although “The Doll’’ is unique in the long bandit-ridden history of this notorious region of Northcentral India as the only woman who has kept the forces of law and order at bay for so long, robbers, murderers and outlaws have plagued the area for centuries past. The official record in Agra, city of the Taj Mahal, notes that even the great Moghul Emperors were kept busy trying to curb the activities of the outlaw bands.

“In the sixteenth century,” says the city record, “the Emperor Sher Shah Suri had to keep a permanent garrison of 12,000 cavalry at Bah to control the turbulent elements of this area. “These abnormal activities of outlaws have from time to time necessitated large-scale military operations. Until 1947. the Scindia State forces used to be employed regularly patrolling the Chambal area in Gwalior State, dealing with gangs which ravaged the area.”

Putli was an attractive girl of 20 years of age dancing in a

nearby town in 1951 when she caught the eye of the local bandit chieftain—a bearded, turbanned ruffian named Sultan Gujar. Sultan, who had a price of £3OO on his head, took her away to live with him, and it was not until several months later that her mother managed to buy her back for £l5O.

But when Putli got home, the local police, who had refused to help to get her out of Sultan’s clutches, quickly decided that here was a chance to use a first-class spy. They prevailed upon her to go back and rejoin Sultan and then to come and report to them on his plans, movements, and whereabouts. Putli, however, decided to play fair to her formei lover. She told him of the police plans for her to act as an informer, and then became a fullfledged member of his band. In her letter. Putli tells how she saw another bandit, a man named Babu Lahari, shoot Sultan in the back during a gun battle with the police so that he could take over “ownership” of herself. But she was genuinely fond of Sultan, and she swore that she would “get” Babu sooner or later and, in her own words, this is how she did it: “After the police had taken away Sultan’s body, I was led away by Babu, whom I did not like at all. When the gang was hiding in a ravine near the village of Miragpur, I asked Babu to go to a nearby hillock to watch for the police. “As he climbed the hillock, I took my rifle and shot him. His body went rolling down the hill. “After that I tried once again to get in touch with the police so that I could get away, but it was impossible.”

So “The Doll,” reported to be the mother of two children by Sultan, inherited the gang, said to number about a dozen outlaws, and is still on the run from the police. She was last heard of about the middle of July near the little village of Scepri, not far from the town of Gwalior.