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Thug Behram
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SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thug_Behram
Thug Behram
or Buhram (ca 1765–1840), also known as Buhram Jemedar and the
'King of the Thugs', was a leader of the Thuggee cult active in Oudh in
northern central India during the late 18th and early 19th century, that is
often cited as one of the world's most prolific serial killers. He may have
been involved in up to 931 murders by strangulation between 1790–1840 performed
with a ceremonial cloth (or rumal, which in Hindi means handkerchief),
used by his cult. Behram was executed in 1840 by hanging.
Biography
While
Behram is sometimes suspected to have committed 931 murders, James Paton, an
East India Company officer working for the Thuggee and Dacoity Office in the
1830s who wrote a manuscript on Thuggee, quotes Behram as saying he had
"been present" at 931 cases of murder, and "I
may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men, and I may have seen
strangled 150 more."
The
English word 'Thug' is in fact borrowed from the Hindi word 'Thag'. The thugs
were covert members of a group, and the term 'Thugee' typically referred to an
act of deceitful and organised robbery and murder.
Behram
used his cummerbund as a rumal to execute his killings, with a large
medallion sewn into it. With practised skill he could cast the rumal so
as to cause the medallion to land at the adam's-apple of his victims, adding
pressure to the throat when he strangled them. Today the sinister Canova
medallion, reputed to have been used in at least 65 murders, along with an aged
hand-written document of 1831 supporting Behram's son Ali's continuance at an
Indigo factory (Correspondence from the Quarter Master General’s office
regarding the Indigo Factory in the Sepoy Lines at Vellore) are preserved in a private
museum.
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