Dacoity

Dacoity is the term used across the Indian subcontinent for banditry carried out by an organized armed gang, with the word itself the anglicized form of the Hindi dakoo and the informal term dacoit meaning a robber belonging to such a gang, recorded as early as the 1903 Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases. Colonial authorities treated it as a distinct problem serious enough to warrant its own institutions: the East India Company established a dedicated Thuggee and Dacoity Department in 1830, and Parliament enacted the Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts between 1836 and 1848 under East India Company rule. Certain terrains became especially associated with the offense, including the ravines of the Chambal region and the Chilapata Forests, both once known as dacoit strongholds.