Madhya Pradesh: Police Set Up 'Dacoit Museum' In Chambal

For the first time in India, the artefacts belonging to dreaded, popular dacoits will be showcased in a museum in Madhya Pradesh's Bhind.

The police have decided to set up a museum in the Chambal belt that will put on display, among many other items, the gun used by bandit-turned-MP Phoolan Devi, Nirbhay Gujjar's tape recorder and stills from the film 'Chambal ke Daaku', reported The Indian Express.

The police have reportedly been donating money for the museum to come up next month which will tell the tales of the victims and the keepers of the law who were kept on their toes by dacoits in the dark underbelly of Chambal.

"So far, the dacoits of Chambal belt have been glorified. Now, it is the turn of the victims and policemen who fought the menace to be brought into (the) limelight," Manoj Kumar Singh, Bhind Superintendent of Police told the news agency PTI.

"There has been a general perception that some people turned dacoits out of despair. The ordeal of victims of the bandit menace has not come to light. Besides, the police force heroes who fought the bandits have remained unsung. All this would be brought to the public domain in the museum," he said.

Singh also told The Indian Express that the idea behind the initiative is not to admire the sway of these oppressors over Chambal but to put their crimes into perspective and "highlight the sacrifices made by the police" to prevent them.

The museum will showcase 2000 digitised records and other archives gathered over the past five decades related to the crimes historically rampant in the region such as murder, kidnapping and loot - all committed by the personalities on exhibit. The museum is also as much about the law-keepers as photographs of 28 martyrs and 30 gallants will be feature alongside other spectacles.

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