Thugs In 19th Century

In today's culture people engaged in selling drugs, trafficking, and prostitution etc are referred to as thugs. But in the subcontinent, there were many groups of people who kill and rob the travelers. There were some Muslims groups and some Hindus groups and in some groups Hindu and Muslims thug together. Hindu thugs believe that their killings were a mean of worshiping their goddess "Kali". Kali was known as the god of death and destruction.

Thugs also existed in the 14th century but their main era of existence is 17th to 19th century. According to one estimate, they killed 40,000 people per year in this era. But their actual activities are impossible to estimate and the true number is also impossible to determine. Each group of thugs had a small group of scouts who gathers information about travelers and their belongings. Thugees work by joining travelers and gain their trust after reaching the safe place where the travelers take rest they kill all the travelers by strangling them with "Rumal" handkerchief. In this way they left no blood and require no special weapon then they rob their victims and bury them carefully. …show more content…
They use their special jargons and hand signs to communicate with each other. There were 10 to 200 members of the thug groups. Each member of the group performs his special task such as luring the travelers with their charming words, acting as a lookout and the role of a killer. It was the matter of great honor for them that no one left alive. All Thugs were male and membership in a thug cult was hereditary and outsiders were also allowed to join voluntarily and some young boys captured in raids were also trained to become thugs. Around their tenth birthday of the sons of thugs, they were invited to witness their first murder and at the age of 18, they kill the first