6. Special incidents (continued)
These murderers looked on all travellers as their legitimate prey, as sportsmen regard game. On one occasion the noted Thug, Feringia,[10] with his gang were cooking their dinners under some trees on the road when five travellers came by, but could not be persuaded to stop and partake of the meal, saying they wished to sleep at a place called Hirora that night, and had yet eight miles to go. The Thugs afterwards followed, but found no traces of the travellers at Hirora. Feringia therefore concluded that they must have fallen into the hands of another gang, and suddenly recollected having passed an encampment of Banjāras (pack-carriers) not far from the town. On the following morning he accordingly went back with a few of his comrades, and at once recognised a horse and pony which he had observed in the possession of the travellers. So he asked the Banjāras, “What have you done with the five travellers, my good friends? You have taken from us our banij (merchandise).” They apologised for what they had done, pleading ignorance of the lien of the other Thugs, and offered to share the booty; but Feringia declined, as none of his party had been present at the loading. They were accustomed to distinguish their most important exploits by the number of persons who were killed. Thus one murder in the Jubbulpore District was known as the ‘Sāthrup,’ or ‘Sixty soul affair,’ and another in Bilāspur as the ‘Chālisrup,’ or ‘Murder of forty.’ At this time (1807) the road between northern and southern India through the Nerbudda valley had been rendered so unsafe by the incursions of the Pindāris that travellers preferred to go through Chhattīsgarh and Sambalpur to the Ganges. This route, passing for long distances through dense forest, offered great advantages to the Thugs, and was soon infested by them. In 1806, owing to the success[11] of previous expeditions, it was determined that all the Thugs of northern India should work on this road; accordingly after the Dasahra festival six hundred of them, under forty Jemādārs or leaders of note, set out from their homes, and having worshipped in the temple of Devi at Bindhyāchal, met at Ratanpur in Bilāspur. The gangs split up, and after several murders sixty of them came to Lānji in Bālāghāt, and here in two days’ time fell in with a party of thirty-one men, seven women and two girls on their way to the Ganges. The Jemādārs soon became intimate with the principal men of the party, pretended to be going to the same part of India and won their confidence; and next day they all set out and in four days reached Ratanpur, where they met 160 Thugs returning from the murder of a wealthy widow and her escort. Shortly afterwards another 200 men who had heard of the travellers near Nāgpur also came up, but all the different bodies pretended to be strangers to each other. They detached sixty men to return to Nāgpur, leaving 360 to deal with the forty travellers. From Ratanpur they all journeyed to Chura (Chhuri?), and here scouts were sent on to select a proper place for the murder. This was chosen in a long stretch of forest, and two men were despatched to the village of Sutranja, farther on the road, to see that no one was coming in the opposite direction, while another picket remained behind to prevent interruption from the rear. By the time they reached the appointed place, the Bhurtots (stranglers) and Shamsias (holders) had all on some pretext or other got close to the side of the persons whom they were appointed to kill; and on reaching the spot the signal was given in several places at the same time; and thirty-eight out of forty were immediately seized and strangled. One of the girls was a very handsome young woman, and Pancham, a Jemādār, wished to preserve her as a wife for his son. But when she saw her father and mother strangled she screamed and beat her head against the ground and tried to kill herself. Pancham tried in vain to quiet her, and promised to take great care of her and marry her to his own son, who would be a great chief; but all to no effect. She continued to scream, and at last Pancham put the rūmāl (handkerchief) round her neck and strangled her. One little girl of three years old was preserved by another Jemādār and married to his son, and when she grew up often heard the story of the affair narrated. The bodies were buried in a ravine and the booty amounted to Rs. 17,000. The Thugs then decided to return home, and arrived without mishap, except that the Jemādār, Pancham, died on the way.