Thread by @Arv_Ind_Chauhan

Police nearly wiped out our family, but another shot at life changed everything, say kin of fabled Chambal bandit Maan Singh #policereforms

We can learn from the past. This story counters contemporary thought/philosophy on police encounters.

One arrest that did not end in an “encounter” brought the reign of bandits in Chambal to a close. It was 67years ago, when Tehsildar Singh, the son of fabled Daku Maan Singh 1/n

, was nabbed. A string of “encounters” and revenge killings had nearly wiped out the family by then. But Tehsildar made 600 bandits give up arms and a life of insurrection. And what was once an outlaw’s family became one of policemen and political representatives. 2/n

“A police encounter does not solve anything. Sometimes, there needs to be a deeper investigation to understand if an accused has the capacity for reform. A second chance always makes a difference,” said Bhavesh Singh Rathore, Maan Singh’s grandnephew. 3/n

It did for Maan Singh’s family. Bhavesh entered politics and contested the 1993 assembly election to Bah as a BJP candidate and his father, Ranveer, is a retired DIG.
“Police reform is required or the political class will continue to use police as an instrument to take 4/n

action against whoever it wants,” said Ranveer, now 83. He knows, he has been a part of the system. “When I was posted as DSP of Chhatarpur, three men from the Murat Singh gang had been killed in an encounter. I had reprimanded the sub inspector who had led the encounter.”
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Ranveer was less than a year old when his father, Darshan, was shot dead. It was 1938, a time the police force was a colonial setup. “Maan Singh’s elder son, Jaswant, had killed a Brahmin called Talfiram after a dispute over drawing water from a well for herd of cattle. 6/n

He went into hiding. Darshan, his cousin, was bringing him food one day. The police followed him, tracked the fugitive Jaswant down and shot them both dead.” To avenge their deaths, Maan Singh’s youngest son, Dhanwat, beheaded five men who had passed on information about 7/n

Jaswant’s whereabouts to the police. Dhanwat, too, was killed. Maan Singh, son of a moneyed Rajput zamindar Bihari Singh who shifted from Gangetic belt of Farrukhabad to Chambal ravines –with control over four villages including Khera Rathore, Mahuasala, Maloni and Gohra, 8/n

took up arms and banded together 17 men — among whom were his comrade-in-arms Roopa Pandit, Roopa’s younger brother Lukha, Maan Singh’s elder brother Nawab (Darshan’s father) and three sons, Subedar, Sobhran and Tehsildar. Jaswant’s sons Bharat and Jandail joined the 9/n

band later. Nawab’s sons never did.
Ranveer’s mother Ram Devi, meanwhile, hurriedly sent him away to Gwalior, to be brought up by Udal Singh, his uncle.
Between 1939 and 1955, Maan Singh was charged with over 1,000 robberies and 185 murders (32 of whom were said to be 10/n

police officers). While the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh wanted him dead or alive, he would go around, addressing people in public speeches. No one turned him in. He practically ruled the wastelands of Chambal sharing borders with UP, MP & Rajasthan. 11/n

“He never shot anyone. His gang members did, but he didn’t. In 1953, his son Tehsildar and grandson Bharat were caught in an ambush. Bharat was forced by Tehsildar to get reinforcement while he hold the ground against police— Bharat inadvertently carried bullet rounds 12/n

along with him, leaving Tehsildar with empty magazine and rifle. Tehsildar was caught by UP Police, a team led by sub inspector Shivnath Tiwari who hailed from Maudha in Mahoba district,” said Bhavesh. Bharat was expelled for abandoning family in a dire situation. 13/n

“He was never found again.”In 1955, Maan Singh was shot dead. “He is believed to have been poisoned by a woman at his in-law’s Kakapura village in Bhind, after which he was shot several times to make it look like an encounter. When Subedar (Maan Singh’s son) went to retrieve 14/n

the body, he was shot dead as well. Tehsildar was still in jail at the time,” said Bhavesh. Tehsildar was eventually sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 3cases and 246 years jail for remaining cases. But his mother, Rupani Devi, retired major general Yadunath Singh 15/n

and Acharya Vinoba Bhave pleaded for mercy. President Rajendra Prasad then commuted the death sentence to a life term. Yadunath Singh would play a significant reformatory role for the family. “When my father scored first division in high school in 1953, Maan Singh called 16/n

him to Chambal to celebrate. But someone tipped the police off and they were caught in an ambush. Bullets flew and my father, just a school student, saw what an encounter looked like,” Bhavesh said. “They got away that day, my father returned and completed his studies. 17/n

He did his MA from Lucknow University, after which Yadunath Singh made him join the Madhya Pradesh police force.” Ranveer trained at the Mount Abu police academy, served 10 years with the police and then joined BSF, where he served for 25 years before retiring in 1995. 18/n

He runs a shelter for widows and elderly women in Lucknow now. And Tehsildar, the bandit who lived, helped hundreds of dacoits turn their lives around. “After he had served 18 years in Bareilly jail, the governments of MP & UP thought of taking him on board to bring an 19/n

end to the cycle of violence. Between 1960 and 1976, we managed to make 654 dacoits surrender, including Roopa and Lukha,” said SN Subba Rao, who spent a large part of his life around Chambal and helped negotiate with the bandits of Chambal. 20/n

In order to help Tehsildar's family return in main stream of public life, the then MP chief minister Prakash Singh Sethi appointed Sher Singh, the second son of Tehsildar as sub inspector. He retired as a deputy superintendent with the Madhya Pradesh police force. 21/n

Later, Tehsildar Singh also fought assembly election in 1991 from Jaswant Nagar seat against Samajwadi party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. “The law has provisions which give individuals the chance to return to society,” the 91-year-old founder 22/n

of the National Youth Project of India added. “There was this 16-year-old from Morena. Since he was five, his mother had told him he had to avenge his father’s death when he grew up. The day he was old enough to hold a gun, he killed the man who had murdered his father. 23/n

He joined Maan Singh’s baaghi (rebel) gang. But we brought him to the mainstream. People can change.” 24/n