Bandit Gains Locals' Loyalty While Long Eluding the Police

JHINNA, India -- Wearing a bulletproof vest, the policeman 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 both 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 deep poverty, has harbored bandits and renegades since at least the 12th century, historians say. Between 1957 and 2001 alone, 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, especially those of the leader's own caste.

"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 ran away from home, pledging revenge. He killed the brothers of the rapist, but the man himself is still free.