Indian Penal Code, 1860
Section 310
repealedThug
Whoever, at any time after the passing of this Act, shall have been habitually associated with any other or others for the purpose of committing robbery or child-stealing by means of or accompanied with murder, is a thug.
Why this exists
This section targeted the historical Thuggee gangs of 19th-century India, organized groups that murdered and robbed travelers, often through ritualized strangulation, over long stretches of highway. British colonial authorities created special laws to suppress these networks in the 1830s-1840s, and this definition was carried into the 1860 Indian Penal Code as a relic of that campaign. It has almost no modern application, since such organized gang-based highway killing networks no longer exist in the form they did historically. This section, along with 311, has been omitted in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Common misconceptions
- Myth: The word 'thug' in this section means the same as the everyday English word 'thug,' meaning any violent criminal.
Fact: In this section, 'thug' has a very specific historical meaning referring to organized 19th-century gangs who committed robbery and murder together, not any violent person generally.