DHULIAN, India, 8 November 2003 — Under a star-lit sky on a lonely road in eastern India, Lal Mohammad walks up and down with a bamboo cane and speaks with pride about his new calling in life.
Once a highway robber, Mohammad is now a highway patrolman.
“I have killed people, robbed truck drivers and beaten them up if they resisted,” the lanky 40-year-old, whose career in crime spanned more than a decade, recalled over the roar of passing trucks.
“Guarding the highway and protecting trucks from dacoits gives me peace and eases my guilt.”
Mohammad is one of a dozen khaki-clad former dacoits, or bandits, who patrol a short stretch of highway connecting West Bengal state with the state of Jharkhand, an impoverished region that has long had a reputation for crime.
Police in Dhulian, a town of 85,000 people 285 km north of Calcutta, teamed up with residents in 1999 to start the program.
Together, they drafted in former outlaws who were out on bail or acquitted by courts.
Four years down the road, about 150 former highway robbers have helped police bring crime rates down dramatically in the lush green countryside around Dhulian.
Police say until the late 1990s, dozens of truck drivers and bus passengers were killed or wounded by bandits every year.
The attacks occurred most weeks on the highway linking Calcutta to the rest of West Bengal and the remote northeast, and on adjacent roads.
Despite initial police skepticism, the scheme has been a huge hit and, since 2002, there have been less than 10 incidents and no fatalities.
“Several years ago, lorry drivers were fearful of driving in this region,” says Gyanwant Singh, superintendent of police.
“Now the cloud of fear has lifted because of better policing and the presence of rehabilitated bandits, who deter others.”
Singh said police had thwarted at least 15 plots to rob trucks and buses in the past 18 months, thanks to tip-offs from reformed bandits.
Truck drivers are delighted with the change.
“I used to be terrified driving on these roads. It’s much safer now, thank God,” said 35-year-old Bhagwat Singh, his truck heavily loaded with boulders.
A founder of the highway protection scheme says the trauma of victims prompted him to act against the robbers, who targeted the 750 or so trucks rolling down the state highway every day with construction material, tea, wheat, oil and jute.
“In 1998, a truck driver was dropped off in front of my house, his eyes bleeding after being knifed by highway robbers. It was too much,” said Abdul Khalique, a homeopath who lives on the outskirts of Dhulian.
In 1999, Khalique got in touch with police officers who told him not to expect funds from the cash-strapped communist government of West Bengal state.
That did not faze him and, along with prominent citizens of the area, he set up the Parivahan Suraksha Samiti, or Vehicles Protection Committee, with the help of the reformed bandits.
Today, truckers pay a small fee of between 10-50 rupees, depending on their load, for the protection.
Most of the money goes to pay the reformed robbers, who earn only about 1,500 rupees ($33) a month — but they are not complaining.
“I have some dignity now. I am doing something for society and not being a nuisance,” says Moti-ur-Rehman, a tough-looking 22-year-old who spent years as a highway robber but is out on bail.
“Guarding this highway is better than beating up people for money.”
