ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 1, 1996 TAG: 9604010138
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW DEHLI, INDIA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE STORY SAYS she lined up 26 men on a riverbank and shot 20 of them after she was gang-raped and her boyfriend was killed. She denies it, but the movie was a box-office hit.
A lower-caste woman both revered and reviled as India's ``Bandit Queen'' said Sunday she will run for a seat in the federal Parliament.
Phoolan Devi allegedly murdered 20 upper-caste men to avenge her rape and the death of her boyfriend. She spent 11 years in jail awaiting trial before being paroled in 1994.
Her life story was the basis for a 1994 film, ``Bandit Queen,'' which won international acclaim and was a box-office hit in India.
Devi said she would run as a Socialist Party candidate representing the city of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, the nation's most populous state. She said she will file her nomination Tuesday.
``Time has come to do some serious work for the people, and I think the best way to do it will be from the seat of power - the Parliament,'' she said.
Mirzapur is dominated by low-caste voters, and Devi thinks she has enough support there to win, The Asian Age reported.
India's voters go to the polls in April and May to elect representatives to the 545-seat lower house.
Devi caused a sensation in 1981 for her alleged role in the attack in the Uttar Pradesh village of Behmai. As the story goes, two outlaws killed her lover, then abducted her to the village, where she was raped repeatedly. Set free, she returned to the village with her own gang, intent on vengeance.
Newspapers at that time reported that she lined up all 26 men of the village at a river bank and emptied her carbine. Twenty of them died on the spot; the others suffered serious injuries.
Devi denied any part in the Behmai massacre, but her 10 years as a bandit in the ravines of central India made her the idol of low-caste Hindus.
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Devi KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB