Gangsta Girls: The number of women in India’s criminal underworld is on the rise

Women in North India have featured in recent headlines for being gangsters. Used for recce, honey traps or an occasional shooting, even in crime they come up against millenia-old patriarchy

North India has long been known for its rough-and-tumble, exemplified by its warriors and wrestlers. Lately, it has gained notoriety for its women-gangsters. Here are some recent headlines:

On June 18, 24-year-old Anu used social media to lure Aman Joon to a Burger King outlet in west Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. When he arrived, she sat across from him and began chatting.

Minutes later two men entered the restaurant and sat near the couple. They then drew their pistols and fired at Aman. He sprinted to the counter, jumped over it and hid, but the shooters followed him; one emptied two pistol magazines into Aman before switching to a second gun. About three dozen onlookers fled Burger King.

Fugitive Himanshu Bhau, an associate of infamous gangster Neeraj Bawana cooling his heels in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, claimed responsibility for the killing, ordered as revenge for a slain comrade.

But it was Anu who caught media attention. Dubbed ‘Lady Don’ by the media, she was alleged to have been a close aide to Bhau, her role that of a ‘honey trap’. “It was a trap laid by her,” Aman’s family told RT.

Another sensational incident took place back in January, when Divya Pahuja (27), a former model and ex-girlfriend of gangster Sandeep Gandoli, was shot in the head in a hotel in Gurgaon, a satellite town in Delhi’s suburbs. Her body was found in a distant canal 11 days later.

Back when she was 18, she was accused of having lured her boyfriend in a ‘honey trap’ in which he was gunned down by the Mumbai police, in what was allegedly a fake encounter. She spent seven years in prison before obtaining bail last year.

In March, Anuradha Choudhary, aka ‘Revolver Rani’ (gun queen), made newspaper headlines for donning a pink sari and marrying another jailed gangster, in what was a traditional Indian wedding. A police contingent witnessed the nuptials. 

Emergence of the Trend

The current trend of women’s involvement in heinous crimes began with the May 2022 murder of singer-rapper Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, also known by his stage name Sidhu Moose Wala, alleged to have been carried out by the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. M

oose Wala was controversial in part due to his lyrics and, in 2020, was charged with promoting gun culture in a song.

And going further into the past, Sonu Punjaban, a notorious sex racketeer in Delhi, was the inspiration for a female gangster character in a Bollywood comedy.

More famously, Phoolan Devi was a victim of domestic violence, rape and public humiliation; she became a bandit to exact revenge, and became a legend. (A biopic, ‘Bandit Queen,’ was made about her). Devi, born into a low-caste family in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, became India’s most notorious outlaw. Accused of 48 major crimes and jailed for 11 years without trial, she later became a Member of Parliament and a prominent leader for India’s lower castes. She was assassinated outside her home in Delhi in 2001.

In March this year, the police in Chandigarh (the shared capital of north India’s Punjab and Haryana) arrested Pooja Sharma and two of her associates, foiling a plot targeting an arch-rival of the Bishnoi gang.

During interrogation she revealed that she’d joined the gang because she was fascinated by Bishnoi’s persona and fell in love with his close associate.

Police sources told RT that the gangs seek out for recruitment young women who are interested in crime. Their work is not limited to reconnaissance or to honey-traps; some are occasionally assigned shootings.

The Patriarchy and the Life of Crime

Divyanjali V, a forensic psychiatrist based in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, believes that patriarchy contributes to women choosing criminal activity. In a patriarchal family structure, the woman is subordinate to her husband, to her father and father-in-law, even to her sons, depending on the head of the family.

“We know that there is a lot of crime against women since they are biologically more vulnerable,” Divyanjali told RT. “Women have been subject to patriarchy for centuries and they continue to feel pushed downwards.”

According to the Women Peace and Security Index 2023, released by the US-based Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security, India ranks 128 out of 177 countries in terms of women’s inclusion, justice, and security.

The most recent data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows the rate of crimes against women grew by 12.9% between 2018 and 2022. The bulk of these crimes were committed by husbands or relatives (31.4%), followed by kidnapping and abduction (19.2%), assault (18.7%) and rape (7.1%).

An abusive home drove Shantadevi Patkar to a life of crime. Dubbed the ’Drug Queen of Mumbai’, she had an abusive husband. The idea of making money through drug peddling led her down a different road.

Divyanjali argues that most crimes appear rational to the ones committing them as they seek a better life or to escape a bad situation. Female criminals are no exception. “They believe it is justified and will make them feel better because the crime is what has caused them harm,” she said. “Any previous traumas or incidents that occur might be a motivator. It could be a strong emotion, like love.”

Women as Gangland’s Expendable Pawns

Saima (name changed to protect identity), a former inmate at Tihar Jail, told RT that women involved in organized crime or gangs are considered expendable. “The men heading the gang will hire a layer of people around themselves, who will then hire another layer of people, who will hire women for petty work,” she said. “Women are disposable. They primarily serve as pawns. These gangs look for scapegoats.”

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Because it is easy money, women may be unaware of the consequences or have been assured that if something happens, they will be protected – which is rarely the case.

Ravindra B. Vaidya, founder and president of Voluntary Action for Rehabilitation & Development (VARHAD), a non-profit organization working to enable access to justice for prisoners, told RT that female gangsters are more prevalent in large cities. “The crime pattern is different depending on the geographic area and there is a huge difference between crime in big cities and those in small towns of rural India,” he explained.

The majority of women prisoners that Vaidya’s organization deals with are first-time offenders accused of spousal murder in response to domestic violence. But women in organized crime or gangs may be there for other reasons. “They can be there for power, too,” he said. “In our male-dominated society, crime is also a source of power. And men believe that women should not have this power.”

Some women in organized crime, according to Vaidya, are either married to criminals or have a male family member engaged in illegal activity. “A male family member with a criminal background dies or is killed in a police ‘encounter’ or is jailed, leaving the woman with no option except to turn to crime because it is difficult to make money legally,” he said.

Saima agrees. She says she knew women in jail who had nothing to do with crime prior to marriage, but after entering a family in the drug or illicit-liquor trade, they became involved as well.

“But they don’t regret it because they believe it’s important for their survival and for the family,” she added. “Most of these women do not think much. They fulfill their assigned responsibilities. The work on how to expand the business is done by male family members.”

Joshi said a large number of young, semi-educated women in organized crime have extravagant lifestyles or work for shady companies. These women engage in phishing, kidnapping, blackmail, trafficking, and dealing drugs. The majority of these women got into such activity during the Covid-19 pandemic, Joshi said.

Some had businesses of their own or had good jobs, but due to Covid and the economic downturn, they had to find alternative work. “Several of them are single mothers,” she pointed out. “They had no options so they took the chance to support their children.”

Women are Just Foot Soldiers

According to Barsha, a Delhi-based criminal psychologist, women in gangs is uncommon because organized crime in India is male-dominated. Pragnya Joshi, Rajasthan Jail Initiative Coordinator of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a human rights organization, agrees. “Less than five percent of women could be involved in organized crime,” she told RT. “Some women are into organized crime, but the majority of them are not.”

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Both Barsha and Pragnya report that women play minor roles in drug trafficking, illicit liquor sale, and in ‘honey traps’.  “We rarely see women heading gangs,” Barsha said. “A lot of women are there as fronts. There will be one or more men leading the gang behind the scenes.”

Barsha said people are fascinated by female gangsters as they rarely hear of them. “There is to some extent glorification, as is the shock value of female gangsters,” she said. “It’s people placing women on a pedestal as if they can’t do anything wrong or commit crimes. It’s human nature to commit crime.” She added that usually, women are perceived as mother figures expected to protect, care for, and nurture. “The fact that female gangsters exist contradicts that notion.”

Joshi argues that society views these women as delinquents who are morally degraded. “Society doesn’t think that women can be ambitious,” she said. “Women are considered to be docile who must be controlled. Society does not take it well when women break free, criminals or not.”

According to Divyanjali, a lot of factors may push women into organized crime. “It could be poverty or just that they love to be in power,” she said.

She has met women in prison who are in organized crime because their boyfriends coerced them into it – particularly drug trafficking or money laundering. However, many women volunteer to participate in scams because of work-from-home opportunities. “They can con people from home and make easy money,” she said.

Came for Exams, Got into Gangs

Joshi recounted an incident involving a young woman from a middle-class family. She went to Jaipur, the capital of the desert state of Rajasthan, for a competitive exam. Her boyfriend and her became accustomed to a certain lifestyle and, to maintain this, he convinced her to participate in blackmail and kidnapping.

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This was also the case with Anu, who once stayed in Delhi to prepare for competitive exams, but got mixed up with gangs.

“There was a case where a young woman from Delhi came to Jaipur,” Joshi said. “She was the first in her family to attend college and came from a modestly middle-class household. She needed to support herself so she became an ‘escort’. She got in touch with a gang and started phishing but was eventually arrested.”

Joshi said it was difficult to exactly know the pressure to join a gang. “Marriage and an independent lifestyle and coming from small towns trying to make your own space in a big city is quite a challenge,” she said.

Vaidya, on the other hand, said young women are attracted to the lives of gangsters. “Even in small towns, you hear about a ‘lady don’ even if she has not committed a crime,” he said. “Her behavior, such as verbal disputes with men, inspires other women.”

Saima said she has rarely seen a woman gangster wielding more power than male counterparts. “I knew this female gangster who held considerable power, but her character was not particularly feminine, making it easier for male criminals to accept her authority,” she said. “She was not your average Indian woman.”

Saima’s final word on the subject: “Despite doing everything, a woman cannot wield the same power as a man, due to her being a woman.”