The Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, a series of laws enacted in British India to suppress organised gangs of Thugs and dacoits, were enacted between:

The Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts were a series of laws enacted in British India between 1836 and 1848.

About the Acts:

The first Act, passed in 1836, made being a member of a Thug gang punishable with imprisonment for life with hard labour.

It also gave special courts jurisdiction to try Thugs anywhere in British India, regardless of where the crime was committed; this was necessary because the Thugs travelled long distances and committed crimes in different places.

Later Acts (1843 and 1848) extended similar provisions to dacoits (armed gangs of robbers).

The Thuggee and Dacoity Department:

• A special department was set up to deal with these gangs.
• It collected detailed information on the gangs, and used captured gang members as informers to identify others.
• The department continued to work until 1904, when it was replaced by the Central Criminal Intelligence Department.

Results:

• By the 1840s, thuggee had largely disappeared from British India.
• Thousands of Thugs were captured and tried; many were hanged, imprisoned or transported to the penal settlements.
• The families of reformed Thugs were settled and given training in crafts.

Debate among historians:

Some historians have questioned the British accounts of thuggee, arguing that the British exaggerated the extent and organisation of the Thugs and their religious motives, to justify their own rule and the expansion of policing.

Others accept that organised gangs of robbers and murderers did exist on the roads of India.

The word "thug":

It comes from the Hindi word "thag", meaning a cheat or swindler, and has entered the English language.

Later laws:

The Criminal Tribes Act (1871) went further, by branding whole communities as criminal.

Why not the other options?

• ✗1793-1800, 1858-1862 and 1871-1876 were not the years of these Acts.