How ‘Chachi’, 67, became one of Delhi’s oldest women gunrunners

It is Rambiri’s second stint in Tihar Jail, after spending eight years between 2009 and 2017 behind bars under the stringent MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) over multiple robberies. Police say it was this stint that steered her into arms smuggling, following her interactions with a jail inmate.

Delhi Police officers say that it was during an investigation into illegal firearms suppliers in the city last year that they first came to know of Rambiri. They had apprehended a smuggler from Madhya Pradesh, who gave the names of individuals in the state who were part of his syndicate, including “Chachi”.

The Special Cell, Northern Range, was told that she is a resident of Meerut and part of the syndicate. Police put a monitor on Rambiri and tracked her movements for around six months before apprehending her.

“We didn’t want to catch her without substantial evidence, which is why we waited for the right moment,” an officer said.

Rambiri, an ardent Lord Hanuman and Balaji devotee, spending an hour at least in prayers daily in jail as per police officials, grew up in the small town of Hastinapur. Having dropped out of school after Class 5, she was expected to settle down to a quiet married life. Meerut, 37 km away, was a major hub of illegal firearms even then, but Rambiri’s life was far removed from that.

That took a turn after Rambiri’s husband Bijender Singh, who was a Muzaffarnagar-based farmer, died in 2003. She has told police it was an unexpected death, due to a heart attack, and subsequently she moved back to her parents’ home in Hastinapur with their three children.

Here, Rambiri came in contact with Baljinder, a tenant of her parents. Almost 12 years younger, Baljinder, unknown to the family, was a wanted robber who had fled the custody of the Punjab Police.

As per police, Rambiri came to know of Baljinder’s past when he was arrested from their residence in 2005 by the Rajasthan Police, which was also looking for him in connection with a spate of robberies.

An officer said, “Baljinder later escaped from Ganganagar Jail in Rajasthan and approached Rambiri again… Soon, they were in a relationship.”

In 2008, Baljinder was accused of committing two back-to-back bank robberies, in Gurugram, Haryana, and Haridwar, Uttarakhand. According to police records, Rambiri was a part of the Haridwar robbery, and waited outside the bank in a car, as the gang looted the bank. The same car was later used as a getaway.

In 2009, Rambiri’s name popped up again, in an attempted bank robbery in the Kamla Market area of Delhi.

The same year, a case under the stringent MCOCA was registered against Rambiri at the Special Cell, Delhi. Subsequently, she was arrested along with Baljinder and remained in judicial custody till 2017.

In the time she was in jail, Rambiri’s three children — two daughters, 43 and 39, and a son, 30 — all got married and moved out.

While in jail, Rambiri’s association with Baljinder, who was well-known to other inmates as “Chacha”, earned her the nickname “Chachi” – and this would become her trademark.

Police believe that it was here that she came into contact with an arms supplier named Sonu, and he invited her to join his gang in exchange for money.

When she got out of jail, she remained in touch with Baljinder and Sonu.

In early 2023, Rambiri is alleged to have started smuggling illegal firearms from Khargone, located about 120 km from Indore. A cotton production hub, it is infamous for the manufacture of illegal firearms.

According to what the 67-year-old has told police, she would travel by bus from Meerut to Delhi, and then take a train to Indore. She would not buy a reserved ticket and always travelled in general coaches. Rambiri could easily disappear into the crowded coach in this manner, and her age meant the officials were not too harsh.

The homemade food she always carried also meant she did not need to step off the train or draw the attention of regular train staffers. Police officials said Rambiri also feared she may be caught on a platform CCTV camera if she got off the train.

She barely spent any time in Madhya Pradesh after reaching there. A code word was exchanged by her at Indore and the consignment handed over to her, usually four to five pistols along with magazines, kept in a single packet.

Indore Railway Station does not have a luggage-checking facility, and this meant that Rambiri allegedly slipped past with her consignment without any chance of being caught.

Rambiri would take the same route back, again buying a general ticket. In Delhi, she would allegedly receive instructions on where to deliver the arms and collect her money.

“For each delivery, she got Rs 10,000,” the officer quoted above said. Police said that she had confessed to transporting “around 25-30 sophisticated firearms over four trips from Madhya Pradesh to the NCR over the past one-and-a-half years”. Officials said they believe the number may be much higher.