In the early hours of January 8, 2005, around 2 am, darkness descended on the narrow road emerging from the Grand Northern Trunk (GNT) 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 goods carrier – HR 38 J 5249 – drove silently down the deserted road and stopped about half a kilometer from the village. Six to eight men silently got down from the lorry and went towards the house situated at the entrance of the village – K. The residence of Sudarshanam, who was then a sitting AIADMK MLA and former minister.
At exactly 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. After this he broke the door of the room in which his second son KS Satish Kumar was sleeping. They broke the glass of a window and from that place the intruders attacked Satish Kumar with blunt iron rods, leaving him bleeding.
The police are taking the Bawariya gang members to a sessions court in Singaravelar Maligai. , Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
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.
On hearing the noise, Sudarshanam, who was sleeping with his wife in a room on the ground floor, came out carrying 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.
After this the gang entered their bedroom, puja room and the room adjacent to the kitchen. They broke cabinets, overturned beds and looted about sixty pieces of gold jewellery. Three women – Jaimala, Sudarshanam’s wife; Thachayani, his mother-in-law; And Neela, the house maid – were safe but completely terrified.
Recalling the incident, Satish Kumar said: “Hearing the sound of hitting the door of my room several times, I looked through the window and saw that six or seven people were trying to break it. 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 part. A blow on my left shoulder dislocated me. Then they entered the room. I became unconscious. Treatment for 10-15 days After, I was told that my father had been shot.”
Hearing the screams of the family, the villagers gathered outside the boundary wall and pelted stones at the dacoits. The gang fired shots towards the crowd, dispersing them, and after looting valuables from the house, fled in the darkness in their lorry parked half a kilometer away.
The then Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police V. Varadharaju reached the spot, cordoned off the area and called his team. “The public had gathered around them in large numbers. The crime scene was devastating, there were blood stains everywhere. Our job was to protect the integrity of the scene. A pair of slippers and an empty bullet shell used by the accused were recovered,” he said.
The entire state was shaken by robbery and murder. Special teams were formed under the then 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 he began investigating, he started noticing similar patterns in several other highway robberies in the state. Working with the then Cuddalore SP Davidson Devasiravatham, he mapped the crimes.
decade of robbery
For almost 10 years, a series of robberies involving murders and serious assaults have been recorded across Tamil Nadu – all with a similar modus operandi. Between 1995 and 2005, 24 such incidents occurred on the national highway from Tiruvallur-Andhra border to Krishnagiri-Karnataka border, resulting in 13 deaths and 63 serious injuries. Fingerprints were picked up at several locations but there was no match in police records. Similar crimes remained unsolved in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Three gang members coming out of the sessions court after the verdict. , Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
Thillai Natarajan, former investigating officer of the Periyapalayam case, said, “During the crimes the gang spoke only in Hindi. Words like ‘chaabi do’ (give the keys) and ‘chup raho’ (shut up) were used. It was clear that the group were from North India.”
The gang first attacked Tamil Nadu on June 7, 1995, at the house of M. Mohan Kumar in Walajapet, then part of Vellore district. They 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, they attacked again at another house 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 was on 12 September 2002 in Salem, in which he 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 attacked four places – Sholavaram, Walajapet and Nattarampalli – and committed murders in three of them. In 2004, they targeted Thiruverkadu, Vellavedu, Sriperumbudur and Thiruvalam. In Thiruverkadu, they shot dead house owner Gajendran, killed his watchman and injured two others. In Sriperumbudur they threw a 14 year old girl against the wall.
the breakthrough
Mr. Jangid said that based on the methodology, investigators suspected North Indian criminal gangs, but could not identify any one gang in particular. 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 their investigation showed similarities in the functioning of the Bavaria gang.
Former Director General of Police SR Jangid, who as IG (North) led the special teams that solved the case. Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
“Initially, it was really a wild goose chase. Every lead was chased. Fingerprint experts traveled with the teams carrying chance prints picked up from the crime scene. Police records in these states were examined,” Mr Jangid said. A major challenge was that police forces in UP, 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 spot impressions matched the thumb impressions recorded in 1996 in the “Register of Transit Prisoners” in the 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 to arrest the criminals. They seized a sheet from a schoolgirl’s notebook containing phone numbers of gang members. Call records and the confession of an accused from Rajasthan confirmed the involvement of the Bawariya gang of Haryana and Rajasthan.
Who were the Bavarians?
The Bavarians were among the most violent criminal groups, operating primarily on the highways at night. Their lorries had secret compartments to hide weapons and iron rods. They parked near roadside eateries and walked four or five kilometers to targeted homes, breaking doors with stones or steel rods and committing brutal, unprovoked violence.
Ultimately 13 people were arrested, including the gang leader Oma alias Omprakash Bawariya, 55, of Ghargot village in Faridabad district; his brother Jagdish; Ashok alias Lakshman; Rakesh alias Kuttu; Angoori; Zaildar Singh; 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 – for the murder of the Walajapet doctor and for the murder of MLA Sudarsanam in Periyapalayam. In 2006, Oma and Laxman initially received death sentence in the Walajapet case, while the others were given life imprisonment. The High Court later commuted the death sentence. Oma died in Vellore Central Jail, and three others are serving life sentences.
sudarshanam case
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 remained absconding. Two – 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 alias Guddu, Ashok alias Laxman and a school teacher, Zaildar Singh alias Lali Master.
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.
KS Satish Kumar, son of deceased MLA Sudarshanam. Photo courtesy: M. Srinath
The four men were brought to the XV Additional Sessions Court at Singaravelar Maligai under tight security on Monday, November 24, Justice L. Abraham Lincoln stated that the eight-year-old child who held the attackers’ feet and pleaded with them not to harm his father had seen their faces clearly and reliably identified them.
He said the fingerprint expert’s evidence strongly corroborated the eyewitness accounts and supported the prosecution’s version. “The prosecution has presented irrefutable evidence against the accused and the defense has not raised any serious doubts regarding the credibility of the witnesses,” he said.
However, the court found that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to prove Zaildar Singh’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 sections 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt), 396 (dacoity with murder), and four to five for illegal possession of arms and ammunition. They will remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives.
The serious robberies committed by the Bavaria gang that once terrorized the state ended a few years ago, but justice, albeit limited, has been served. However, many members of the gang are absconding and have been avoiding trial in the pending cases.
