Talk:Thug Behram

Picture

The Picture is of Late Ustad Ziauddin Khan Dagar, a doyen of Rudraveena from Dagarvani Style of Dhrupad Music. He was a court Musician at Royal Court of Udaipur (A former Princely State in, Rajasthan, India). The original author of this article has published this image, without knowing its original personality. A sad day for Indian Classical Music. Anuvab.palit (talk) 08:39, 2 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anuvab.palit (talk • contribs) 08:31, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Was he alone?

I don't recall the name of the book off my memory, but I read that the thugees were a group, and they conducted murders in groups, not just Behram alone. So, I wonder if he can be put into this list as the killer in all these cases. --Ragib 18:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

In "The Top Ten of Everything 1996" (ISBN 0-7894-0196-7, Page 65) they cite Behram as being convicted at his trial of personally committing 931 murders. It also says the cult itself is estimated to have killed upwards of 2,000 people. MrB

The Thuggee were known to have been active from the 17th to 19th centuries, until the British wiped them out. The death toll caused by the cult as a whole is uncertain, but estimates very from 50,000 to as high as 2,000,000 murders. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 04:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Manuscript sources

I have updated this stub to take into account the original source for the statement that Behram killed as many as 931 people. His statement has been read out of context and, in addition, his actual confession was to actively participating in the killing of no more than 125 people. Mikedash 14:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 16:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Contradictions

This article makes no sense, in the introduction it claims the number of murders to be in the 900s and then in the "analysis" this is reduced to only 125 killed by Behram. Shabba3001 (talk) 00:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Another contradiction (or at least missing information): If he was never tried for the murders, why was he hanged? --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 20:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Analysis

The whole "analysis" section is poorly written and speculative. If the speculation is on the part of verifiable sources, it should be sourced. If not, it doesn't belong here. I'm going to remove it. Rees11 (talk) 23:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's the removed text:

Attribution of so many killings to this one murderer is, however, the product of confusion and mistaken reporting of unchecked statements. The original source for Behram's 'confession' is a manuscript on Thuggee written by James Paton, an East India Company officer working for the Thuggee and Dacoity Office in the 1830s. Paton's manuscript - now in the British Library - states that Behram had merely estimated that he had "been present" at 931 cases of murder, the killings themselves being committed by a gang of 25 to 50 men, at least half a dozen of whom, other than Behram himself, would have played an active role as stranglers.

In addition, Behram's statement is unverified and Thug never stood trial for any of the murders he confessed to, having turned King's Evidence and agreed to inform on his companions.

It should further be emphasised that this Thug gave a second, much less publicised, account, concerning the actual number of murders he committed. At another point in Paton's papers, Behram is quoted as saying: "I may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men, and I may have seen strangled 150 more".

Since Behram's alleged murders were committed in the course of a 50-year career, and since it was in Thug informers' interests to make themselves appear as important as possible to their British captors, it is not certain whether any specific total number of killings can be attributed to this one murderer.

Rees11 (talk) 17:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Serial killer?

He doesn't seem to meet the definition of serial killer as it is used here on Wikipedia. Rees11 (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Sources and Expansion

This article is way too short and needs to be expanded in far more detail than what it currently has. Information pertaining to Behram's early life, time in the cult, murders, arrest/execution, and legacy should all be added to the article with proper citations from reliable sources given for each piece of information. Considering how prolific Behram was, it's sad to see this article in such a state of underdevelopment. There is plenty of information on Behram than can be included from the article on the Thuggees. I will include a list of sources that can be added to the article at a later date.

• Mike Dash (3 February 2011). Thug: The True Story Of India's Murderous Cult. Granta Publications. ISBN 978-1-84708-473-6.
• RJ Parker (29 September 2017). Serial Killers Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers from A to Z. Rj Parker Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4947-7216-1.
• Damien Rollins (10 June 2013). Listed to prevent failure on title withdraw. Speedy Publishing LLC. ISBN 978-1-62884-114-5.
• LLC Books (September 2010). Indian Serial Killers: Raman Raghav, Joshi-Abhyankar Serial Murders, Auto Shankar, Thug Behram. General Books LLC. ISBN 978-1-158-40246-5.
• Gordon Kerr. World Serial Killers: They kill for the thrill. Canary Press eBooks. ISBN 978-1-908698-16-2.
• Martine van Woerkens (November 2002). The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-85085-6.

--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:29, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Notes on rewrite

This article had serious problems pertaining to WP:NPOV and WP:V, I've rewritten it using Dash (2005) and Wagner (2007), which are two of the most reliable and respected sources on thuggee. Van Woerkens (2002) barely mentions Behram and what she does say is repeated by Wagner (2007) in more depth. The previous version of the article completely botched the modern reassessment of the sources by Dash (who posted above) and had succumbed to folklore.

• As for the expansion of the article, Behram is really just a footnote in the history of thuggee. His interviews with Paton were emphasised in order to present the colonial account of thuggee and therein popularised (similar to Feringheea but later) but there appears to be very little known about him. There isn't really any reason why there should be tons written about him and his kill count of 931 was erroneously based on an unpublished manuscript, later becoming a figment of folklore-- Dash debunked this figure over 20 years ago. I've read more or less everything scholarly on thuggee and I can't believe this is considered a Level 5 vital article, above Jack the Ripper! (with 200 views a day).

• The sources don't lend themselves to writing a proper biography and there's nothing of substance on his life before capture, nor his death. Furthermore, very little is stated in the authors' voices so I've had to attribute the material to the primary accounts as they do.

• No date is given for Behram's capture and it doesn't seem that Ramzan's testimony is going to be published in colonial accounts, otherwise it would feature in the popular folklore. It's more likely to me that Dash got this from the East India Company archives (perhaps the Paton collection?). [this testimony is presented in Depredations (1840) and undated] It'll most likely be the early 1830s, or at least 1829-1836, based off Dash's narrative and the interviews. Ramzan was captured in 1835.

• Titling the infobox "Thug Behram Chor" is some sort of twisted joke, Behram is explicitly recorded in interviews as having seen the term chor (thief) as beneath him.

• I have no idea where the claim that he was hanged in 1840 came from but it's highly irregular. Behram was ostensibly [confirmed in PS] accepted as a valuable approver, meaning that his sentence would have been commuted to life imprisonment. Beyond being unsupported, it seems highly improbable that he was put to death at the end of the campaign. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1837.

• The Deadly Dozen: India's Most Notorious Serial Killers reads more like fiction than history and heavily cites Sleeman's accounts against the contemporary consensus among historians. This isn't a serious book, given the tone in which it's written I'm surprised it's been classified as non-fiction.

• I'm not familiar with the spellings of Indian English, please correct this where you see it.

Joko2468 (talk) 01:01, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

William Henry Sleeman's works don't seem to mention Behram. It's possible that his grandson's book was the foundational source of the '931 murders' myth since this comes from Paton's unpublished manuscript. Joko2468 (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

ní Fhlathúin (2001: p.4) says that the Oudh chapter in Depredations was contributed by Paton. Joko2468 (talk) 12:44, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

A higher resolution print of Paton's map is present here but, to my frustration, the person who scanned Depredations didn't bother to unfold it. It's not present in the other copy. Potentially one of the portraits in the Paton Collections at the British Library is of Behram. Joko2468 (talk) 13:12, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

There were details in Fhlathúin (2001) that I had missed, regarding the date when he ceased being active and when Ramzan was captured, narrowing down the window for Buhram's capture. Joko2468 (talk) 09:30, 24 May 2026 (UTC)