Earlier that year the U P police had negotiated a similar deal with another prominent gang leader called Chhabiram. Reliable sources have it that when Chhabiram emerged from the cover of shrub, having thrown down his rifle, he was shot dead in cold blood because in the end the U P police did not believe in “doing deals” with dacoits. The best explanation they could offer, when questioned later, was that they thought he had “acted odd” and so they had been forced to take “precautions”. News of Chhabiram’s killing spread like wildfire through the ravines, enforcing suspicions against the U P police.

It was in this spirit of competition that they were negotiating with Ghanshyam, who remained distrustful of them and therefore had not mentioned it to Phoolan Devi and Man Singh. However, unlike Chaturvedi, who understood the culture and tradition of baghis, the officers of Uttar Pradesh showed little sensibility.

There had been much bitterness against him, Chaturvedi told me many years later, from senior police officers and other officials in Uttar Pradesh after Malkhan Singh’s surrender. In terms of press coverage, the Madhya Pradesh administration and police had stolen the limelight and pulled off a political coup which Chaturvedi said his colleagues across the border resented. Some politicians went so far as to say that dacoit leaders had expressed public confidence in him only because they “had him in their pockets”, he added wryly. He emphasized the fact that he had done nothing without consulting his superiors, including the Prime Minister; but both politicians and police officers with an axe to grind had cast aspersions on his integrity and motives. He told me he accepted it all philosophically because he “understood politics”! “Rivalry and competition are common emotions,” he said, as one of his staff arrived to invite us into the Mess for lunch: a very welcome meal of rice, dal, vegetables and hot chapattis.

Unbeknown to Chaturvedi, Ghanshyam had met with a representative of the Additional Inspector-General of Police, Mr R. Govil. For his part, Govil was having the gang leader watched and followed by a sophisticated network of scouts and informers, in the hope that he would eventually lead them to Phoolan Devi. When Ghanshyam despatched Mansharam and Ramprakash, two senior members of his gang, none of them were aware of their vulnerability. Neither were Man Singh and Phoolan Devi, as they trekked in silence through the ravines, following their guides.

A shot distance away, on the outskirts of the next village, a P A C patrol sat in wait, confident that Ghanshyam’s messengers would choose the same route on their return journey and, with some luck, would not be alone.

All Phoolan Devi remembers is the heat of the day and the exhaustion she was feeling at the time. Her clothing soaked with sweat, she kept walking, thinking that she would have to stop soon to take a break. She would wait until the next patch of shade; but trees in the ravines are few and far between. Suddenly she heard a burst of gunfire. Man Singh, who had been just behind her, fell or threw himself on top of her. He was not injured, she could tell from the brisk urgency with which he spoke as he dragged her towards the thorny shrubs of babul lining the pathway. The two men ahead had been hit. One tried to drag himself towards cover, trailing blood in the dust, but his body shuddered as several more bullets struck him, before he went limp.

Fortunately for Phoolan Devi and Man Singh, a junior constable had reacted too soon and taken a shot while they were still out of range. This enabled them to move sideways and, once in the shrub, they were out of view. The officer in charge told his men to hold their fire. It was just the pause they needed to zigzag to safety. From a distance they heard a loudhailer, telling them to drop their weapons and surrender. They were being assured they would not be harmed. Phoolan Devi says she fired three shots into the air as they continued to run.

She was furious. They had been double-crossed by Chaturvedi. Who else would have known about this meeting? She made up her mind and told Man Singh that all policemen were dogs dirty filthy dogs. Any thought of surrender was out of the question, as far as she was concerned. In the circumstances, Man Singh had no arguments.

Ghanshyam, too, cursed Chaturvedi when he heard of the ambush at Chaurela and fired a volley of bullets into the sand out of anger. He moved camps in quick succession and sent another message to Phoolan Devi, saying that he had decided not to give himself up. He did not trust the police on either side of the border. They were all the same.

For Rajendra Chaturvedi, who later read a police report on the incident, it was a major setback. He had assured the Chief Minister, Arjun Singh, who was in touch with Mrs Gandhi in Delhi, that he would soon have results and now he found he was back where he had begun. The informer, who had provided the link with Ghanshyam, had disappeared overnight and the policeman was reluctant to send for his family, as he would normally have done to question them. It would be seen as “police pressure” and misinterpreted. Ghanshyam and Phoolan Devi would attribute the ambush to him. He decided instead to visit Ghanshyam’s uncle and Phoolan Devi’s mother in order to explain that he had had nothing whatsoever to do with the killings.

After much effort, patience and anxiety, after sending out many feelers of Ghanshyam, Chaturvedi was informed one day that the bandit leader had agreed to meet him once again, in the ravines east of Bhind. He set out unarmed, his only escort one of Ghanshyam’s harbourers. At the camp he was surrounded by the entire gang, armed, alert and tense. Ghanshyam had believed him but remained withdrawn and cautious.

“What about Phoolan Devi?” he asked.

“What about her?” Ghanshyam retorted.

“Will she surrender if you do?”

He got a shrug.

“If you have any way of contacting her or Muslim please tell them I had nothing to do with what happened at Chaurela. I found out later. I want to help and if you trust me you will be safe. If all of you move to Madhya Pradesh, I will instruct our police not to look for you; to leave you alone. Also, tell Phoolan Devi I have met her mother, to reassure her that if she surrenders in Madhya Pradesh, I will see to it that the whole family is protected.”

“You’ve been to UP?” Ghanshyam was surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “Tell her to check if she wants.”

They both laughed and the atmosphere lightened.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ghanshyam said finally. “I’ll

That was the only “assurance” he had got, Chaturvedi told me when we met in Rewa, many years later, on thelawns of the Police Mess. I was there with other members of the film crew with whom I was working at the time. I had telephoned him from Gwalior and fixed an appointment to meet him. He had only recently been posted to Rewa, as Commander of the Special Armed Force and his house was still being done up. Since his wife had not yet joined him, he was staying at the Police Mess and from the attitude of the staff, he was obviously an extremely popular officer. After drinking cold beer on the lawn, we were treated to a wonderful lunch, and everyone was full of stories.

“Continuing the saga,” he said after lunch, “time passed and winter descended on the ravines. It was bitterly cold. Icy nights, shrouded in mist, cut visibility down to a few feet. It was on such a night that I got the message I had been waiting for.”

He was in his office late one evening. A villager in dusty clothes and mud-caked shoes asked to see him. The sentries kept the man at the gate and sent him word. Chaturvedi, used to such visits, thought nothing of it as he instructed his peon to lead the man in. Many such people used to come, and still came, to see him because of his position of power, he said; and undoubtedly also because by then he had gained the reputation of being an “understanding” policeman and a compassionate man. They came to him or jobs, for jobs for their sons and sons-in-law, for “justice”, for compensation connected with road accidents, and to lodge various complaints. He was tired that day, engrossed in his own thoughts, when an old man was ushered into his office. He was a humble sort of man, his hands joined together in a namaste, as if he were praying.

“What is it?” Chaturvedi asked.

“Parusram Singh sent me, Sahib. He says if you want to meet Phoolan Devi you must come with me.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, Sahib. I have come to take you to Parusram Singh.”

“Now?”

“Yes. He says it will only be possible if you come now. He also says you must come alone and you must not wear a police uniform.”

Parusram was a Thakur farmer who lived in a small, remote ravine village in Madhya Pradesh, close to the Uttar Pradesh border, and was known to have contact with baghi gangs in the area. Chaturvedi offered the old man some tea, telephoned his home to say he had urgent business out of town and went into the adjoining room to change his clothes. He put a small camera and tape recorder into his pocket, adding his revolver, after a moment’s thought.

As he stepped back into the main office, the old man said, “Sahib, it is very cold, you should take a blanket. We will have to walk.” Ignoring his advice, Chaturvedi said he would take his motorcycle. “We will still have to walk,” insisted the old man as they left.

A thick fog descended and the going was slow, as trucks and cars rushed past them on the highway. The old man directed him and when they reached a village, not far from the main road, it was already past midnight. The old man asked him to park his motorcycle outside a darkened hut: it would be safe there; now they would continue on foot. He disappeared into the hut and emerged with a blanket which he offered the policeman, repeating his earlier statement: “It is cold, Sahib.”

Chatuvedi said he had been touched by the old man’s concern and grateful for the blanket. The air had felt ice-cold as he rode the motorcycle and he was shivering. He wrapped the coarse and heavy blanket round himself, covering the lower half of his face for warmth.

Polite as he was, the old man made no pretence about the fact that he was under strict instructions to take every possible precaution. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere he sat down on a cement culvert that bridged an irrigation canal. The cement was cold and Chaturvedi spent the time pacing up and down in an effort to keep the numbness away. “Why have we stopped?” he asked.

“In case we are being followed,” the old man replied in a matter-of-fact way, as he smoked bidis.

They stayed at that spot for two hours or more and Chaturvedi began to feel impatient and irritated, as his limbs stiffened. The old man sat motionless on the culvert, oblivious to the cold, or so it seemed. He too was wrapped in a blanket.

Then they were walking again. The fog had begun to lift and the lights of a village were in sight.

Phoolan Devi’s diary records the events of the morning that followed.

“At 6 a.m. our look-out warned us that the village headman was coming towards us, accompanied by two men in brown coats. I decided to let them come. I wanted to know who they were.