By the early hours of January 9, 2005, around 2 a.m., darkness had fallen on the narrow road leading off the Grand Northern Trunk Road, also known as the Kolkata-Chennai National Highway. The villagers of Thanakulam near Periyapalayam, about 60 km from Chennai, were fast asleep, unaware of the danger. A fully covered lorry – HR 38 J 5249 – moved silently on the deserted road and stopped half a kilometer away from the village. Six-eight men quietly got down from the lorry and moved towards the house at the entrance of the village. This is the then AIADMK MLA and former minister K. It was the residence of Sudarshanam.
At 2.15 in the night the silence was broken by the blow of an axe. The armed gang broke the wooden front door and entered inside. Their leader was guarding outside with a gun. The gang quickly climbed the stairs to the first floor. They locked the room of Sudarshanam’s elder son Vijayakumar, who was sleeping inside. He then moved towards the room in which his other son KS Satish Kumar was sleeping. They broke the window panes of the room and started attacking Shri Satish Kumar with blunt iron rods from the empty space.
When his wife Geeta moved forward, a man twisted her left hand until she screamed in pain. His eight-year-old daughter clung to the attackers’ feet and pleaded with them not to hurt her father. But the gang ignored her pleas, continued attacking Satish Kumar and Geeta and snatched jewelery from Geeta’s body at knifepoint.
go out with a sickle
Awakened by the commotion, Sudarshanam, who was sleeping with his wife in a room on the ground floor, came out with a sickle. As soon as the attackers saw the weapon, they shot him with a .12 bore bullet in the right side of his chest. He collapsed and died instantly. The gang then made their way to his bedroom, puja room and the room adjacent to the kitchen. They broke cabinets, overturned beds and looted about 60 pieces of gold jewellery. Three women – Jaimal (Sudarshanam’s wife), Thachayani (his mother-in-law), and Neela (the house maid) – remained safe but were frightened.
Recalling the incident, Mr. Satish Kumar said, “I heard the door of my room being knocked several times and looked through the window. I saw six to seven people trying to enter inside. I held the door tightly from behind, but could not stop them. They broke the window next to the door and attacked me with an iron rod in the open. A blow on my left shoulder made me lose my balance. They entered the room and I was unconscious. After 10 to 15 days of treatment, I was told that my father had been shot dead.”
Hearing the screams of the family, the villagers gathered outside the boundary wall and pelted stones at the dacoits. The gang fired one round at the crowd and fled in the darkness in a lorry parked half a kilometer away.
Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police V. Vardharaju reached the spot, cordoned off the area and called his team. “A large number of people had gathered around them. The crime scene was chaotic, there were blood stains everywhere. Our job was to secure the spot. A pair of slippers and an empty bullet shell used by the accused were recovered,” he said.
SR Jangid, who was then Inspector General of Police (North), led special teams solving robbery cases. , Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
The entire state was shaken by robbery and murder. Special teams were formed under the leadership of Inspector General of Police (North) SR Jangid. Deputy Superintendents of Police V. Jayakumar (Thirukoilur), M. Sudhakar (Madhavaram), C. Vijay Kumar (Thiruvallur), and Ara. Arul Arasu (Hosur) joined the investigation. Mr Vardharaju said that as the investigation began, he noticed similar patterns in several other highway robberies in the state. Working with Cuddalore SP Davidson Devasiravatham, the team mapped the crimes.
decade of robbery
For nearly 10 years, a series of robberies that included murders and serious assaults – all equally working style – This was reported all over Tamil Nadu. Between 1995 and 2005, 24 such incidents occurred on the national highway from the Tiruvallur-Andhra Pradesh border to the Krishnagiri-Karnataka border, resulting in 13 deaths and 63 serious injuries. Fingerprints were picked up at several locations, but there were no matches in police records. Similar crimes remained unsolved in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
“While committing the crime the gang used to talk only in Hindi. Words like.” key doh (give the key) and shut up (Shut up) was used. It was clear that this group was from North India,” said Thillai Natarajan, former investigating officer of the Periyapalayam case.
The gang first attacked the house of M. Mohan Kumar in Tamil Nadu on June 7, 1995, in Walajapet, then part of Vellore district. It killed him, seriously injured his wife and two children, and stole jewelery and cash worth over ₹50,000. After three years the case was closed as unknown. The following year, the gang attacked another house again, in the same city. After a gap of five years, the gang resurfaced in 2001, and committed a major robbery in Avinashi, followed by three more robberies in Dharmapuri and Salem districts.
Their crimes increased in 2002, with eight robberies recorded in Salem, Avinashi, Kangeyam, Gummidipoondi, Athur, Kariyamangalam, Bargur and Sriperumbudur. The most sensational incident occurred in Salem on September 12, 2002, when they killed Congress official Thalamuthu Natarajan and his watchman Gopal and injured six others. A sub-inspector reportedly saw the gang leaving but failed to take action. They walked two kilometres, boarded a lorry and disappeared.
In 2003, he carried out attacks at four locations and committed murders at three of them: Sholavaram, Walajapet and Nattarampalli. In 2004, they targeted Thiruverkadu, Vellavedu, Sriperumbudur and Thiruvalam. In Thiruverkadu, house owner Gajendran was shot dead, his watchman was killed and two others were injured. In Sriperumbudur they threw a 14 year old girl against the wall.
the breakthrough
Mr. Jangid said that while walking working styleInvestigators suspected North Indian criminal gangs to be involved, but no gangs could be specifically identified. The teams visited Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and decimated the criminal tribes in those areas. They then focused on Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Punjab as the investigation revealed similarities with the Bavaria gang. working style,
“Initially, it was a wild goose chase. Every clue was chased. Fingerprint experts traveled with the teams carrying chance prints picked up from the crime scene. Police records in these states were checked,” Mr Jangid said. A major challenge was that police forces in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan did not routinely preserve fingerprints or maintain detailed records of hardened criminals.
The breakthrough came on February 1, 2005, when Police Inspector (Fingerprints) Dhananchelian, who was part of the Uttar Pradesh team, found that four of the spot’s fingerprints matched the thumb impressions recorded in 1996 in the register of transit prisoners in Agra Central Jail. The print belonged to criminal Laxman alias Ashok of Chandanpura village in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district. He was linked to six robberies in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
Tamil Nadu Police teams camped in the area for several days and arrested the criminals. They seized a sheet from a schoolgirl’s notebook containing phone numbers of gang members. Call records and confession of an accused from Rajasthan confirmed the involvement of Bawariya gang members from Haryana and Rajasthan.
The Bavarians were among the most violent criminal groups, operating primarily on the highways at night. Their lorries had secret compartments to hide weapons. They parked their vehicles near roadside eateries and walked four or five kilometers to the houses they targeted, breaking down doors with stones or steel rods and committing brutal, unprovoked violence.
Thirteen people were eventually arrested, including the gang leader, Omprakash Bawariya alias Oma, 55, of Ghargot village in Faridabad district (Haryana); his brother Jagdish; Laxman; Rakesh alias Kuttu; Angoori; Zaildar Singh alias Lali Master, a school teacher; And three women. Two gang members were killed in an encounter near Meerut.
The courts later convicted many of them, including Oma and Ashok, in four cases, including the murders of the Walajapet doctor and Sudarshanam. In 2006, Oma and Laxman received death sentence in the Walajapet case, while others were given life imprisonment. The High Court later commuted the death sentence. Oma died in Vellore Central Jail, and three others remained serving life sentences.
Vantage vehicle: One of two lorries used by a gang to escape after committing a robbery in Tamil Nadu. , Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
32 people were nominated
In the Sudarshanam murder case, 32 people were named in the charge sheet filed by the Periyapalayam police on September 18, 2006. 22 of them were at large. Oma and Bura died during the trial and one was treated as a juvenile. Seven were tried, but the case was later split after three women withdrew their bail. The case ultimately went against Jagdish, Rakesh, Laxman and Zaildar. Additional Public Prosecutor D. Maharajan said the prosecution examined 66 witnesses and produced 52 exhibits and material objects, including two country-made guns and two lorries used by the accused.
The four men were brought to the XV Additional Sessions Court at Singaravelar Maligai under tight security on November 24 this year. Judge L. Abraham Lincoln believed that the eight-year-old girl who held the legs of her attackers and pleaded with them not to harm her father had seen their faces clearly and reliably identified them. He said the fingerprint expert’s evidence corroborated the eyewitness accounts and supported the prosecution’s case. “The prosecution has presented irrefutable evidence against the accused and the defense has not raised any serious doubts on the credibility of the witnesses,” he said.
However, the court found that the prosecution “miserably failed” to prove Zaildar’s involvement or link him to the gang through admissible evidence. He was acquitted. The remaining three were sentenced to four to five life terms under Indian Penal Code sections 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) and 396 (robbery with murder) and illegal possession of arms and ammunition. He will remain in jail for the rest of his life.
Serious robberies committed by the Bavaria Gang ended a few years ago and justice, albeit limited, was served. However, many members of the gang are still absconding and have been avoiding trial in pending cases.
