NEW DELHI, 27 July — Controversies accompanied Phoolan Devi, the slain “Bandit Queen” right to the crematorium site. While her family wanted the last rites to be performed in Delhi, her party members insisted on her being cremated in her political constituency, Mirzapur (from where she was elected to the present parliament). Anxious to exploit the situation in the forthcoming assembly polls of caste-ridden Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav justified the party’s decision by asserting, “We, Samajwadi Party are her family.”
Angry supporters of the Bandit Queen went on a rampage outside her home, attacking government vehicles and blaming political rivals for her death as her body was flown to Mirzapur. Devi was shot dead outside her residence in the heart of New Delhi.
“The investigations are continuing,” was the only comment a police spokesman would give almost 24 hours after Phoolan Devi, a sitting member of India’s lower house of parliament, was gunned down.
Devi was shot several times in the head by masked gunmen on Wednesday.
A senior police official said the Delhi police crime branch had formed special teams to investigate the crime, some of which had been despatched outside the capital.
“We have some leads at the moment but cannot discuss them. All angles — whether it was political rivalry or personal enmity — are being probed,” the official said.
The 38-year-old Devi was part of India’s bandit folklore, with her life on the run in the ravines of the central state of Madhya Pradesh in the early 1980s the subject of numerous films and books. Devi’s turbulent life, captured in Shekhar Kapur’s 1996 movie “Bandit Queen,” comprised many incarnations, from abused child-bride to feared outlaw and finally member of parliament.
Earlier yesterday, the coffin carrying her body and covered with flowers and wreaths was loaded into an ambulance and driven to the capital’s airport.
Her husband Umed Singh confirmed her cremation would take place at Mirzapur, the constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which had twice elected her to the federal parliament.
“Two charter planes will be leaving here soon with Phoolan’s body,” Singh said.
“There are plenty of people who want to come, but we can accommodate only a few close relatives,” Singh added.
Devi’s official MP’s residence was crammed with hundreds of supporters, grieving relatives and curious onlookers from the early hours of yesterday.
The body was kept on the lawn in a tent behind her house so that people could pay their last respects, with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and opposition leader Sonia Gandhi among the early visitors.
A group of Devi’s supporters threw stones at the nearby residence of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh, whom they blamed for removing her security cover despite threats to her life. That view was endorsed by A.B. Bardhan, general secretary of the Communist Party of India, who was among the mourners. “I was aware she had been receiving threats to her life. She had asked for a gun licence but was refused on the grounds that she had a criminal background. Home Minister (L.K.) Advani should own responsibility for her death,” he said.
Inside the residence, Devi’s mother, Mula Devi, was being consoled by close relatives.
“You should be proud that you have given birth to such a daughter,” one of them said.
Remarks in a public condolence book reflected Devi’s image among many as a champion of the oppressed. “You were one who showed us that even the downtrodden can rise to power,” wrote one admirer.
“Sister Phoolan you were the leader of the poor and the underprivileged. With you gone, we are lost,” said another.
There was no national outpouring of grief for a notorious figure who once lived by the gun and then died by the gun. But a simple newspaper headline — “A Queen is Dead” — summed up India’s shock, and commentators praised the courage of a woman who fought for the downtrodden and oppressed.
