On the night of June 7, 1995, a gang struck at the house of M. Mohan Kumar at Walajapet, then in Vellore district. It killed him and seriously injured his wife and two children, before making away with gold jewels and cash, all worth more than ₹50,000. However, three years later, the case was closed as “undetectable”. The gang struck again in the same town the following year, this time at the house of Sankar. After five years, it re-entered Tamil Nadu in 2001 and committed a major robbery at Avinashi. It committed three more robberies in the same year in Dharmapuri and Salem districts.
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Sensational murder in Salem
The frequency of the offences that the gang had committed in Tamil Nadu increased in 2002, with eight robberies reported from Salem, Avinashi, Kangeyam, Gummidipoondi, Athur, Kariamangalam, Burgur and Sriperumbudur. The most sensational among them was the one in Salem. On the night of September, 12, 2002, the gang members entered the house of Congress functionary Thalamuthu Natarajan at Annathanapatti, killed him and his watchman Gopal, and injured all the 6 residents, some of them seriously. The police arrived at the spot and one sub-inspector reportedly saw the gangsters walk away, but failed to act. That night, the gang walked two kilometres, boarded a lorry and escaped.
In 2003, they struck at four locations at Sholavaram, Walajapet and Natrampalli; at three of these places, they committed murder too. In 2004, they targeted Thiruverkadu, Vellavedu, Sriperumbudur and Thiruvalam. In Thiruverkadu, the gang shot house owner Gajendran to death, besides killing his watchman, and injured two other inmates. Ahead of the Pongal in 2005, they struck terror in the house of sitting MLA and former Minister Sudarsanam at his house at Thanakulam in Tiruvallur district. Around 2.30 a.m. on January 8, an armed gang descended on the house of Sudarsanam. As one of them stood outside totting a gun, the other members broke open the front door with an axe and began attacking the inmates with iron rods.
Sudarsanam, who rushed out of his room, was shot dead with a single-barrel muzzle-loading gun. The gang escaped with cash, jewellery and mobile phones. The gang leader, who positioned himself outside the house, fired at the neighbours who rushed out on hearing the alarm. The gang boarded a lorry parked one kilometre away from the scene. The next night, it attempted another robbery at Burgur. In these 10 years, it committed 24 robberies in Tamil Nadu, in which 13 persons were killed, 63 were injured and jewellery and cash worth over ₹2 crore were stolen. The gang had also struck terror in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
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Immediately after the series of murders and robberies, the then Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, constituted a special investigation team, led by Inspector-General of Police S.R. Jangid and comprising four Deputy Superintendents of Police. They travelled all along the road through Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. After investigation, the team found out that the pattern of crime was the same in all the cases. The major impediment to the investigation was that the police in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan did not preserve the fingerprints of the accused persons at the time of their arrest.
Mr. Jangid concluded that since there was no similar crime reported from 1996 to 2000, the criminals might have been in jail. Then the team went to jails to verify the registers. A breakthrough came when Dhanancheliyan, inspector of police (fingerprints), declared that four prints lifted from the crime scenes had tallied with one thumb impression recorded at the Central Jail, Agra, in 1996. The thumb impression was that of Ashok alias Laxman, a Bawaria criminal of Chandanpura village in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. He was declared an accused person in six robberies in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
The arrest of Dharam Singh Bawaria, the organiser of the gang, and then Laxman unravelled the mystery behind the series of heinous offences. Only after their arrest did the police come to know of the Bawaria tribes living predominantly in Rajasthan, known for their daring robberies.
Modus operandi analysed
Mr. Jangid, who later retired as the Director-General of Police, said, “In order to come to a conclusion about the criminal gangs that operated, we had to analyse the modus operandi adopted by them. The Bawarias and the Pardies are known for attacking residents of houses without provocation while committing the offence. Both of them use iron rods for attacking the residents on the head and the neck. Many times the injuries are fatal. Discussions with experts show that these criminals use this modus operandi. But the Pardies do not carry firearms with them. Moreover, the Pardies commit rape while committing robberies, whereas the Bawarias don’t.”
Mr. Jangid said the gang members travelled in a container truck transporting goods from north India to various places in the south. While returning after delivering the goods, they targetted posh houses close to national highways. In the early hours, they parked their truck one kilometre away from a targetted house. They carried two types of weapons. One of the gangsters would stand outside the house, with the gun, and the others would enter the house, break open the front door with a steel axe or by hitting it with rocks. They spoke only Hindi while committing offences. They attacked residents without provocation with iron rods on the head and the neck. They looted cash, jewellery, mobile phones and electronic items.”
If and when the residents of a house put up resistance, they would open fire and kill them. And if a crowd gathered, they would open fire to scare it away, as they did at Thanakulam and Annathanapatti. They would even silence pet dogs.
The police arrested the Bawaria gang, led by Oma Bawaria alias Balvir alias Rajvir, and comprising Kaalu, Ashok alias Laxman, and six others. Oma and Laxman were given the death sentence, while the others were given life imprisonment and other prison terms in 2006.
