Thugs

Thugs (from Sanskrit sthag,”conceal” or “deceive”), former secret organization of robbers in India, who always strangled their victims. Devotees of the goddess Kali, they regarded their activities as religious rituals; new members were initiated in an elaborate ceremony, and they worshiped, as a symbol of the goddess, the pickax with which they dug the graves of their victims. Included in their ranks were many Brahmins and respectable businessmen. In October, they would meet in bands of from 10 to 200 and set out on the highways, where they would set upon wealthy travelers, strangle them with a cloth, distribute the booty, and flee. A portion of the booty was always presented as an offering to the goddess in one of her temples. Thugs arose in northern India before the Muslim conquest in the 12th century ad and thrived, with extraordinary immunity from prosecution under Hindu law, until 1829, when Lord William Bentinck, the British governor-general of India, began to investigate the organization, perhaps because of thugee activity directed against British soldiers and government officials. The campaign against the Thugs, directed by Sir W. H. Sleeman, was remarkably successful. Within seven years more than 3000 of them had been imprisoned or hanged, and the Thugs were wiped out.