The Indian thugs (thagi), who were "the most bloodthirsty bandits in the history of mankind", received the most notorious reputation for sophisticated killers. In 1812 alone, about 40,000 people died at their hands.
The secret sect of the thugs-stranglers existed in India for several centuries and only at the beginning of the 19th century was it finally revealed. The sectarians knew each other under the name of fancigars, that is, "people of the noose." The name "tug" came from the word "tag" - to deceive, since the tugs took possession of their victim, luring her with false security.
It was not easy to become tight - it is a long, complicated process. Boys were admitted to the sect when they were ten or twelve years old, and most of the candidates were close relatives of the strangler.
The surety led the candidate to the spiritual leader of the sect, who, in turn, took him to a room where the giemadiers, the chiefs of various gangs, were waiting for him. When asked if they wanted to accept a newcomer into the sect, they answered in the affirmative, and then he and the guru were taken out into the open air. The leaders stood around them in a circle and everyone knelt down for prayer. Soon the guru rose again and, raising his hands to the sky, said:
Oh, Bovany! Mother of the world, whom we adore, accept this new servant, grant him your protection, and give us a sign by which we will make sure of your consent.
After these words, all those gathered remained motionless until a bird flew past or an animal ran past to ascertain the consent of the goddess. Then everyone returned to the room where the neophyte was invited to sit at the set table. The newly accepted member of the sect began his bloody path to the glory of the goddess Kali as a luggah - a gravedigger or as a belhap - a researcher of places most suitable for committing intended murders. In these "positions" he remained for many years, daily proving his skill and zeal.
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Finally, the day came when he was promoted to the degree of candidate for bhuttotagi - strangler. The promotion was associated with new formalities and rituals. On the day appointed for the ceremony, the guru led the candidate into a circle drawn in the sand and surrounded by mysterious hieroglyphs, where he was to pray to his deity. This rite lasted four days, during which the candidate ate milk alone. Without leaving the circle, he also practiced the slaughter of victims tied to a cross dug into the ground.
On the fifth day, the guru handed him a fatal noose, washed in holy water and oiled, after which the candidate became a real bhuttotag. The newly minted strangler vowed to remain silent about everything that concerned the strangler sect, and to work tirelessly to destroy the human race. He became a sacrifice, and the person he met, put in his path by the goddess Kali, became a victim.
At the end of the ceremony, a new member of the strangler sect was handed a lump of brown sugar, which he had to eat immediately, and the guru made a speech on this occasion, urging the young thug to send as many victims to the next world as possible, and to do this in the shortest possible time. At the same time, he was forbidden to strangle women, lepers, oblique, lame and generally ugly, as well as laundresses and representatives of some selected castes, whom the goddess Kali provided her protection. Women, by the way, were protected from murder only if they traveled alone, without a male patron.
Thévenot, a famous French traveler of the 17th century, complained in his letters to his homeland that all the roads from Delhi to Agra are teeming with these "deceivers". He wrote:
They had their favorite trick to trick gullible travelers. The Tugi sent pretty young women out on the road, who wept bitterly and lamented, thus causing pity among the travelers, then lured them into a trap, and then strangled them with a yellow silk ribbon, to which a silver one rupee coin was tied at one end.
Tug gangs usually took to the high road after the rainy season, in the fall. Until next spring, only one of the gangs (and there were several hundred of them throughout the country) could strangle more than a thousand people. Sometimes lonely travelers became their victims, at other times - whole groups of people who passed into another world in the blink of an eye. The Tugi never left witnesses alive, so even dogs, monkeys and other animals belonging to the killed were destroyed.
Preparations for the murder always took place in a routine manner. The gang set up camp near a town or village and sent some of its smartest members out to roam the streets and visit the shops. As soon as they saw a small group of travelers, they immediately found a common language with them and offered to travel further together. If the simpletons agreed, their death was not far off.
The sacrifice was carried out by strangulation, bloodless. The murder weapon was a silk ribbon 90 cm long and 2.5 cm wide - rumal. The neck wrap technique has been perfected. The lightning-fast throw of the end, on which the knot was tied, could be made from the front, from the side, but more often from behind the victim.
Having intercepted the end wrapped around his neck, tug committed cross strangulation, which, as experts in martial arts admit, is no longer possible to escape. Perhaps this is the only military technique that has passed from a religious ritual into modern life. It was adopted by spetsnaz specialists and became an applied element of their combat skills.
The Tugi pierced the eyes of their victims before dumping the bodies into the well. For the stranglers, this was a “control shot in the head”, which became a mandatory procedure for them after in 1810 a man whom they considered dead came to their senses and escaped.
The adherents of the secret sect of the Tugs sincerely believed that serving their powerful goddess they fulfill a divine mission, destroying abundantly multiplied people. As a reward for such "service" they took away the property of the killed. Seen in "ratism" was doomed and shared the fate of his victims. If one of the members of the sect confessed to those in power or even his relatives that he was tough, he was also killed, and with his own rumal, which was then burned.
The Stranglers were not bandits in the usual sense of the word. They killed people not only for the sake of prey. Their sacrifices tugi, in accordance with an elaborate ritual, were dedicated to the dark and terrible goddess Kali.
Kali, or Bovani - she is equally known in India under both names - was born, according to legend, from a burning eye in the forehead of the god Shiva. She came out of this eye, like the Greek Minerva from the skull of Jupiter, an adult and perfect being.
Kali personifies evil spirits, enjoys the sight of human blood, prevails over pestilences and plague, directs storms and hurricanes, and always strives for destruction. She is presented in the most terrifying image that an Indian fantasy could create: her face is azure with yellow stripes, her gaze is fierce, her hair loose, tousled and bristly stands like a peacock's tail, and intertwined with green snakes. She had her own temple, where people sacrificed pets and birds to her, but her real priests were tugi - the sons of Death, quenching the endless thirst of a bloodthirsty deity.
According to legend, Kali first wanted to exterminate the entire human race, with the exception, of course, of her loyal followers and worshipers. Taught by her, they began to kill everyone with swords. And so great was the annihilation carried out by the thugs that the human race would soon have been completely suppressed if the god Vishnu had not intervened. All the blood shed on the earth, he forced to reproduce new living beings and, thus, opposed the priests of Kali.
Then the bloodthirsty goddess went for a trick and ordered her followers to only strangle people. With her own hands, she blinded a human figure out of clay, breathed life into it with her breath and taught the thugs to kill without shedding blood. And so that Vishnu would not find out about her cunning, she promised her priests that she would always hide the bodies of their victims and destroy all traces.
Kali kept her word. But one day one of the curious tugs wanted to know what the goddess was doing with the dead bodies, and lay in wait for her when she was just about to take away the body of the traveler he had killed. Noticing the curious, Kali went up to him and said:
You saw the terrible face of the goddess, which no one can contemplate while remaining alive. But I will spare your life, although as a punishment for your offense, I will no longer protect you, as it was until now, and this punishment will extend to all your brothers. The bodies of those killed by you will no longer be buried and hidden by me: you yourself must take the necessary measures.
And success will not always be on your side, sometimes you will become a victim of the wicked laws of light, which should be your eternal punishment. You will have nothing left but the knowledge and higher mind I have given you. From now on, I will rule you only through omens, which you study carefully.
From that time on, they began to attach particular importance to various kinds of omens. They saw them in the flight of birds, in the habits of jackals, dogs or monkeys. Before going out "on business" they began to throw an ax into the air, and in which direction on the ground it fell with an ax-handle, the killers directed their way there. If at the same time any animal ran across their path from the left side to the right, the tugs considered it a bad omen and the expedition was postponed for a day.
The Stranglers have acted so mysteriously for centuries that the British at first had no idea of anything. They had vague suspicions only at the very beginning of the 19th century, and only in 1820 did the general manager of the East India Company order Captain William Slimane to put an end to this outrage. He himself had been studying the criminal activities of robbers and stranglers for several years, but, unfortunately, his colleagues did not provide him with any support.
If the captain's colleagues shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, the local rajahs even interfered with his work. Many high-ranking Hindus themselves became involved in this criminal activity. When a band of stranglers was once arrested, the Maharaja Gwalior himself sent troops there to fight off the bandits.
Sleiman was the first to recognize the fundamental religious nature of the strangler cult - the murders were sacrifices for the dark mother, Kali. Due to their deep religiosity, they were usually conscientious, honest, benevolent and reliable. Sleimen's assistant described one of the sect leaders as "the best person I have ever known." Many of the stranglers were wealthy people in positions of responsibility. Some of the funds they looted were sent to local rajas or officials.
Efforts to eradicate "tugism" went very slowly: by 1827, only three hundred stranglers had been arrested by Slimane. By the end of 1832, he managed to arrest and send another 389 stranglers to court. 126 of them were soon hanged, and 263 were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In total, Captain Slimane managed to obtain the conviction of more than three thousand robbers-stranglers. But thousands more of the bandits remained at large. It should be borne in mind that every strangler could boast of killing at least 250 people during his "career".
When the Prince of Wales, the future English King Edward VII, visited India in 1876, the Tug crimes had already begun to decline. The prince was taken to a prison in Lahore, where he talked with an elderly robber, whose life was spared after he gave evidence to the court and named his accomplices. The prisoner, without a shadow of excitement, told the prince that he had sent 150 people to the next world.
The detainees admitted that they were not pursuing profit at all - their goal was to deprive a person of life. Explaining their behavior, they claimed that they were fulfilling a divine mission and that for this they had a special place in heaven.
India is famous for the first and largest serial killer in human history, a strangler named Behram. He was born in 1778 near Delhi. He stood out for his powerful physique, enormous growth and incredible strength among his peers, so at the age of 12 he successfully completed his first "ritual" murder.
Like all other members of the sect, Behram wore a traditional yellow-white silk scarf-noose. For "convenience" several coins were tied at one end of the scarf, and this weight allowed in the blink of an eye to wrap a stranglehold around the victim's neck. Deftly sneaking up behind, Behram threw a noose, deprived the victim of life and took away her property, some of which he sacrificed to his “patroness”.
It is incredible, but in 50 years, Behram strangled 921 people, which was proved at the trial. Fearing that the thugs would try to save a man whom they regarded as almost a demigod, the authorities immediately after the trial sent Behram to the gallows. He is officially listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest serial killer in human history.
According to the historian William Rubinstein, between 1740 and 1840, the thugs killed 1 million people, the Guinness Book of Records attributes two million deaths to their account.
Stone sculptures of the goddess Kali have survived in India to this day, and local residents still bring their sacrifices to them, as was done in the past for several centuries. Tradition and history are not forgotten.
Used materials from the site 95live.ru