Meeting Bunty Chor ...

For two months, we kept trying to meet, even see Bunty Chor. When I first started out, I didn't know who this Bunty Chor was. But over chai and internet searches, I heard numerous tales about Bunty from fellow crime reporters.
The whole story was reported over the course of two months, while I continued doing other stories. A few times I got lucky but most of the time was spent waiting, hoping that prison officials would let me see Bunty.
Meanwhile, we talked to the police, to the neighbors who had never seen Bunty but sort of seemed happy that Bunty was a star, and to jail officials.
The story is a reconstruction of all that they said.
We also got to meet Bunty. I just kept calling the Tihar Jail to fix an appointment and finally one Monday morning, I got lucky. I saw him finally in Tihar jail and the story could have been nothing but about the process of meeting him, and demystifying the super chor.
An edited version was published in the Sunday Section in the Indian Express on April 26, 2009.


Chinki Sinha

Through the maze of dangling cobwebs, and through the dusty iron grilles in the dimly-lit prison cell, Bunty Chor smiled, hesitantly, the corners of his mouth stretching slowly, unsure at first, and then came the full smile.
He didn’t ask me who I was, or why I came. He just began talking, explaining he wasn’t the famous Super Chor, the man who gave Delhi police sleepless nights, and who stole with such efficiency and charm that the cops love him, and the journalists are smitten by him.
Outside, the sun shone a pale yellow. Some of that light filtered in through the door at the back and the corridor smelt like damp, dusty book covers.
Against the light, Devender Sharma, 38, looked tired. He is balding, his cheeks have sunk deeper than what his picture in the police files showed them, and his collarbone is prominent. And he looks far from the image we had of him, an image that was constructed through conversations with the police and the reporters – a good looking thief who spoke fluent English, could imitate accents and had a girlfriend who was so pretty that she outshone even India’s most dazzling woman, Aishwarya Rai’s beauty.
On that Friday evening, when the sun beat down and the hours stretched endlessly, and the policemen stood around me, laughing, Bunty Chor almost convinced me he was a rambling madman.
After all, Bunty Chor, a Class IX dropout, is a conman, master at it, too, and I was just beginning. I did not know how to talk with him. At first, I treated him like Bunty Chor himself, asked him about why he did what he did, if life in prison was tough, to which he of course said “yes”, so that by getting familiar with him, I might get him to narrate his life freely. I asked him about the UTV film, asked him if he indeed asked for compensation, but the look of bewilderment on his face, wasn’t encouraging at all. So, I asked him what did heaven look like.
“It’s peaceful. You don’t feel hungry there. I have been there many times. The entrance is through a man’s body merged with a female’s body,” he said. “You see, it is inside me.”
The word heaven must have a consoling ring for him. He used it often. Maybe he was confused by the horror of what was ahead. Or perhaps, he was just pretending to be insane, carefully sticking to his convoluted conversation, not digressing even once.
Then he began to ramble, his eyes shifting, dancing, wild, yet tragic.
At first he told me he wanted to build a submarine. Yes, that’s what he wanted to do after he got out of the prison. Then, he whispered that the submarine would fly too, crisscrossing the skies, free in its path, chasing its destinations – London, America, Africa, everywhere.
”No, don’t call me Bunty. Bunty is dead. I am 130 years old. I have no name,” he said, his eyes scanning the faces of the policemen standing across him. “They are all against me,” he said.
He was caught in Chennai. They called him Hari Thapa. He had romped and kicked but no, Rajinder Singh, the SHO of Lodhi Road police station, kidnapped him, brought him to Tihar’s high security prison because the they were all conspiring against him, in fact the whole universe had turned against him, and they didn’t believe in
extraordinary powers of producing gem stones.
He doesn’t like the prison life, he said.
“It is uncomfortable. It is confining. And I have other things waiting. I want to build an aeroplane, a submarine,” he said.
Around me, the policemen laughed. But Bunty held his ground. His imagination never shorted out. In the dark, narrow cell bound by rusted iron rods, he gave his dreams too much running room. In between his submarine dreams and the lament over his stolen Kohinoor diamonds, Bunty had created a happy conspiracy for himself out of which he doesn’t want to step out.
Except at love perhaps, Bunty was lucky at everything else. He had amassed huge wealth, tagged at Rs. 6 crores, lived in expensive hotels, drove luxury cars, one of which fashioned like the famed Batman’s car where on pressing a remote control button, the backdoors opened and the seat pushed forward and he could stack his loot
effortlessly. He handled his money about as carelessly as he ran his life. And then he fell in love. He showered Jyoti with expensive gifts, including a diamond set that the police said they let her keep because nobody had come to claim it. But his beloved dumped him. And he was miserable, and cried often, Rajinder Singh said.
“If she would have stuck to him, he would have quit stealing. He told me when we talked about his life. He loved her,” he said.
But that afternoon, Bunty denied his love too. Yes, he had a Nepali wife, but he has to find her after he gets out of the prison, he said.
I had been warned that Bunty Chor was pretending to be insane, yet another of famed ploys to get out of jail. He had given the police a slip before on numerous occasions. In 1993, when he was arrested in New Delhi, he managed to run away from the office of Special Staff. In Chennai, where he was subsequently caught, he ate glass pieces in judicial custody and managed to get admitted in the government
hospital. Using a disposable syringe, he freed himself from the handcuffs. Twenty days later, at Chandigarh, he escaped by picking up a scooter of one of the sub-inspectors. Later he caught at Bangalore while trying to dispose off his loot and remained in custody until 1998 and then in Belgaon till October 2000. But he continued on the stealing spree, stealing anything he fancied, a dog, expensive
cutlery, watches, jewelry, anything. He didn’t need the money but he did it for the challenge or perhaps for the lack of anything better to do.
He was arrested later in 2002 after he committed more than 200 cases of theft. This was when Rajinder Singh first arrested him. And that’s when his girlfriend dumped him. That’s when Rs. 5 crores worth of goods were recovered.
Rajinder Singh can never forget the little auction they had at the police station when the victims came to claim their loot.
“Bunty remembered each loot, where it was from, who owned it before he did and he distributed it all himself,” he said. “He had such sharp memory.”

For two months, we had been trying to meet the famous Bunty Chor. The press had written about him in great detail. They made him a star, made him the enigmatic figure who stole because he needed to. His first theft was a loaf of bread. He was hungry then, and young too, a fellow journalist said.
“Then it became a habit, almost an obsession as if he was trying to prove himself,” he said.
But then, Bunty Chor sort of faded from public memory. Well, not exactly. Script writers came scouting for his story. Then Bunty Aur Babli was released. And then came Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! where the thief has an uncanny resemblance to Bunty Chor and the cop is Rajinder Singh somewhat.
“That’s his story. No two ways about it,” Rajinder Singh said.
But in the last one-and-a-half years, Bunty who is in Tihar’s Jail No. 4, a high security prison, since 2007, nobody came to see him.
“I can let you see Afzal Guru, but I can’t let you see Bunty Chor,” the Director General of Prisons BK Gupta said when we first approached him, flashing our press cards, requesting him to let us see him once, if only for a few seconds.
We hit the wall. We tried everything from sending in questions to jail officials to touring the city, hoping to find Bunty in people’s stories, neighbors’ tales, anywhere.
In Vikaspuri, where Bunty’s mother lived years ago, a group of children were playing cricket. When they heard “Bunty Chor”, they started humming songs from the film Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, the movie that police claim is based on Bunty’s life.
“Yes, he is from here. But we have never seen him. So what? We have seen the film,” a boy, hardly 10-years-old, said. “He is the super chor.”
And they giggled. They seemed proud of his feats. It made the cramped middle-class locality, one of the many in the ever-sprawling Delhi, famous/infamous.
Bunty has more than 550 cases of theft and burglaries against him.
Like Robin Hood, the archetypal thief in English folklore, Bunty Chor is almost a legend. Over tea, inside police stations, or outside newspaper offices, he is talked about often.
“Bunty stole for the kick of it. He picked out his car, and if it was in between two cars, he would break into the other two, park them on the side, then drive the favorite one out, park it, then park the other two in their spots, and drive away,” Rajinder Singh said. “That is how he was. He was stylish.”
Once, at Taj Hotel in Mumbai, he joined a foreigner at the hotel’s discotheque and picked up his laptop, documents and $1,500 while he was busy reading newspaper. He once attempted to steal a Rolex watch worth more than Rs. 9 lakhs from a five-star hotel in Bangalore. In yet another incident, when confronted with a Rottweiler, a ferocious dog, he threw chunks of chicken at the dog. The dog kept to his food. The man, who owned it, later lamented saying the dog was no good.
And once, attempting to break into a house, he saw the daughter watching porn on her laptop. He told her, hanging from the window, that it wasn’t right. The girl, ashamed, let him steal.
Such tales are numerous.
On that afternoon, while we waited to see our Robin Hood, we negotiated with the constables to let us in without proper ids. When I flashed my New York State driver’s license, they thought I was an advocate. They let me in, spoke with me in broken English, and made fun of my name. When Zahid Rafiz, another reporter, shoed his J&K election card, they dismissed it. But they relented.
We sat there waiting for the man to open the cell. A Sikh man, who sang “Singh is King” walked up to us. He looked like he knew the prison well. He looked comfortable there. We had just taken to a corner.
“You are new here,” Jujhar Singh said.
Of course we were. He had spent seven years in Tihar’s Jail No. 2 for a murder case, he told us.
We asked him how it was inside the jail.
“Oh, there is television, there’s everything,” he said. “But I don’t miss it.”
We askd him if he saw Bunty Chor ever.
“Who is he? The Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! guy?,” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” we said.
“You know him? How?,” he threw another question at us.
“Yes, I am his childhood friend,” I said.
Then, we walked to where Bunty was lodged. And we paced up and down, in anticipation, studying the visitors, though there weren’t many of them, trying to accustom our eyes to the dim lighting.
“Bunty Chor aa gaya,” someone shouted.
And then we see the man we have been chasing ever since. I take out the crumpled paper from my pocket and attempt to scribble. But his rambling is too suave, too fast, too smart for me to arrest it all on paper.
“Madam, tell them to release me. I have to go to London. That’s where I am from,” he said. “Give me you number. I will call once I am out of here.”
He never asked my name.

Form the police office - the view from the other side

“Bunty is a Super Chor. I am the Super Cop.”

Bunty Chor, a Class IX dropout, got lucky once with Lodhi Road SHO Rajinder Singh.
In 2002, the Delhi police had formed special teams, relied on surveillance cameras, and informers throughout the NCR region. When they finally got him, it was almost by fluke. Bunty slammed the door on them. It was a tip off by some neighbor in Noida that there is this businessman who goes out only in the nights and the police went
knocking on the door. When he shut the door, the police got suspicious and broke into the house but not before the super thief had called the 100 number saying that strange men were there to get him.
So they got him. Bunty then served his full conviction. But through his term, he struck a bond with Singh, who still swears by Bunty’s good character.
Leaning against the chair in his office, with coffee in tiny bone china cup in one hand, Singh’s eyes wander, then rest upon the window on the other side of the room, a strange glimmer in them, as he sets out to narrate his tryst with the city’s most-loved thief. The coffee gets cold, the layers form on the froth, but Singh doesn’t notice.
“He was totally a different character. He had a typical style. He stole only what he liked,” he said. “But he was such a humane character. I was never disgusted with him. And let me add, very intelligent too. When you deal with a genius thief, you got to plan. It was a great challenge for us.”
But Bunty got him too. They had long conversations. They discussed his style, his passions, his girlfriend, everything. He accepted his crime, confessed too. The police never had to raise their hands.
And the more they discussed, the more Singh got to like him, or so he thought. When Bunty got out of the prison in 2006, he had promised Singh that he would lead a straight life.
Then, one day, Bunty called Singh to tell him he was going to Mumbai to try his luck in Bolllywood. Singh was happy. Finally, the thief was converting.
But no, the super chor gave him the slip.
The Defence colony car thefts happened and Singh knew by instinct it was Bunty who was behind the thefts and the chase began. Yet, Bunty kept calling him, and the two kept talking, one running from the other, the other out to get him. In many ways, it was an ego thing.
Bunty had told Singh he wanted to help the police, that he had found enlightenment. But of course, none of this was true. Bunty was at its classic best, Singh said.
Incidents of thefts of luxury cars from Deefnce Colony, New Friends Colony, Hauz Khas and Malviya Nagar were reported.
“It was in the typical Bunty style. He had a thing for nice cars, the luxury cars, all good things in life,” he said. “You should have seen his girlfriend. She looks better than all the Bollywood women. She can put them to shame.”
He even went to Nepal, found himself a girlfriend, and met Charles Shobhraj. Meanwhile the police, led by Singh, fretted, drew plans, and hoped to nab him once again.
Delhi police and the South District put together all their resources, and sent out teams all over India, tracking his movements.
Bunty Chor was last released from jail in October 2006 for 42 cases of burglaries. After getting out, he spread his network to different cities in India and even abroad.
But on April 6, 2007, he came to Delhi from Chennai at 5 p.m. intending to commit crime and was arrested. The police recovered a Rado watch, four stolen laptops, clothes, diamond and gold jewelry, and one passport in the name of Hari Thapa.
“See Bunty was too smart,” Singh said. “But we were smarter. And by 2007, he was a spent cartridge.”
Singh has it all by heart. And he begins to list the interesting cases. Bunty Chor once stole a Honda Civic and fixed a red light that belonged to another car, and fixed it on top of the stolen car and crossed the Gujarat border and stole the Rado watch and an ATM card from which he withdrew Rs. 35,000. But when he went to withdraw more to another booth, the owner turned up.
“Bunty told him to register a complaint with the police when the owner told him about the theft. And then left the car there and boarded a three-wheeler and escaped,” Singh said. “He never lost his calm.”
That’s why perhaps it was difficult to catch him.
When they met in 2007, Singh and Bunty exchanged glances. The game was over for Singh. He got him once again.
But in court, Bunty, the conman, played yet another trick. To a crowd of young girls who wanted to have a glimpse of the handsome thief, of journalists, and of police, he acted bizarre to prove he had an unstable mind.
A journalist who was there at Patiala Court at the time, said, she almost believed him. But the police knew better. Bunty Chor still has many cases pending against him. According to prison records, there are at least 12 cases against him.
He spends his time reading the Geeta and other texts and talks philosophy.
Long ago, his parents disowned him. The police never knocked at their doors again.
Every night, Bunty shouts in the cell, asking for help. He blames the police for attempting to kill him, and writes a letter to the judge at Patiala Court everyday seeking respite. But then, the cops are done with it. They send him for regular check ups to the hospital.
And they still discuss his thefts, and laugh at the helpless man, who rambles.
“He is trying too hard,” Singh said. “We won’t be hoodwinked this time.”
For Singh, the chase has ended for now. And he gets back to his coffee.
“There would be no other like him,” he said. “It was fun catching him.”
But as Bunty once told the court.
"Police and I are pitched in a football game. Sometimes they score the goal. at other times, I win."