On Tuesday, a BJP youth wing leader from Uttar Pradesh announced a reward of Rs 11 lakh for anyone who would kill West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. It’s not the first time that a politician has put his foot in his mouth. Just a month ago, an RSS leader from Madhya Pradesh announced a reward for the head of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He had to pay a heavy price for the act. The RSS leader had to quit his post and faces a few police cases.
The syndrome of announcing prizes or rewards for bringing fugitives to justice or assassinating an enemy goes far back into history, and the mythologies of many countries are replete with such lore; of emperors announcing bounties for any who wished to win their daughter’s hand, or war heroes presenting the decapitated heads of enemy kings to please their masters.
What’s a bounty?
A bounty—a word derived from the Latin word bonitās or goodness—is a payment or reward offered as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task. Bounties, in the form of money or largesse, are declared for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. One well-known example is the bounty announced for the capture of Saddam Hussein and his sons by the United States. Even the IT industry harks back to the practice. Many software hackers make a living by detecting bugs and reporting them to the maker in order to win a handsome prize. They even call themselves bounty hunters.
Were rewards given in ancient history for fetching criminals or wanted people?
Yes. Bounties were a common phenomenon in the 17th and 18th centuries when western nations relied upon the system to get rid of criminal elements from society. In the 18th century England, a bounty of £100 was given to anyone who provided information about robbers or burglars. Under William III, the system became a common practice to fight crime. In 1824, a bounty of 500 acres of land was declared in Australia for capturing Windradyne alive. Windradyne was a Wiradjuri warrior and the leader of the Aboriginal resistance movement.
Is bounty hunting legal?
Yes, bounty hunting is legal in some countries, such as in several states of the the US and the Philippines, where bounty hunters are bail bondsmen who are rewarded for bringing criminals into the clutches of the law. But nowhere is killing for reward legal. Laws vary regarding the powers of bounty hunters. For example, in the US, a bail enforcer, might have the option of entering a fugitive’s place to capture him but is not allowed to enter the houses of their friends or families.
A celebrated case of a fugitive being brought to justice by a bounty hunter was the capture of the multi-millionaire serial rapist Andrew Luster by an independent bounty hunter named Duane "Dog" Chapman, who tracked down his quarry to Mexico back in 2003.
Is the bounty system legal in India?
Not in the Wild West sense of it, but bringing in fugitives to justice is legally rewarded in India. For instance, the National Investigation Agency has a list of fugitives for whose capture it has handsome rewards. Several states fighting Maoists and terrorists also have a bounty system that rewards citizens and law enforcement personnel for capturing or killing fugitives at large. Here’s a few on the National Investigation Agency’s wanted list of 141:
—Mupalla Lakshman Rao
—Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi
—Isak Sumi
—Illyas Kashmiri
—Hafiz Muhammad Saeed
Who usually become bounty hunters?
Former soldiers, mercenaries, policemen or detectives who have the necessary skills to track down and confront criminals often take up bounty hunting as a profession. Surviving in dangerous and unpredictable conditions is a major skill that many of these bounty hunters possessed.
Some famous bounty hunters
Rick Crouch: A former South African politician, Rick Crouch set up a private investigation and digital forensics company and assisted the law enforcement agencies in tracking fugitives. He became known as the "PI to the stars" for having a client list of prominent California celebrities and politicians.
John Riley “Jack” Duncan: A renowned Texan lawman, John Riley was known for his efforts to capture one of the most infamous criminals Wes Hardin in the late 1800s.
Domino Harvey: She was a British bounty hunter in the US and was known for being one of the very few women in the field. She targeted drug dealers, thieves and occasionally murderers. She died in 2005 due to an alleged drug overdose.
David Schulz: A former wrestler, Schulz later began his career as a bounty hunter and has captured more than 1700 fugitives. He has worked with some of the major law enforcement agencies like the DEA and the FBI and has pursued criminals as far as Egypt and Puerto Rico.
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Controversial cases of bounties on important personalities
1. MF Husain: In 2006, the Hindu Law Board offered a bounty of Rs 51 crore to anyone who eliminates artist MF Husain for making obscene paintings of Hindu goddesses. The Hindu Law Board offered double the amount to UP minister Yaqoob Qureshi for slaying the artist. One of the most controversial paintings was Mother India which depicted a nude woman posing across a map of India with names of states on her body. Husain, who was living in a self-imposed exile, died in June 2011 in London.
2. Salman Rushdie: The most notorious case of a reward being offered for the head of a personality was of course that of Salman Rushdie. In 1989, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie for writing the book The Satanic Verses and placed a bounty of $3 million for killing him. The bounty is still on. Last year, more than three dozen hard-line Iranian media outlets raised the bounty by $600,000.
3. Yaqoob Qureshi
UP minister Yaqoob Qureshi offered a bounty of Rs 51 crore for killing Danish cartoonist for caricaturing the Prophet. His statement had sent shockwaves through the Samajwadi party with many leaders choosing to distance themselves from him.
4. Pinarayi Vijayan: Earlier this year, Kundan Chandrawat, an RSS leader from Ujjain declared a bounty of Rs one crore to anyone who beheaded and brought him the head of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Chandrawat had held the Kerala CM responsible for the killings of RSS men in the state. The RSS leader was arrested and later released on bail. He also retracted his statement which drew considerable condemnations.
5. Tarek Fatah: In February this year, a Bareilly-based Muslim organisation, All-India Faisan-e-Madina Council, declared a bounty of Rs10 lakh for beheading Islamic scholar Tarek Fatah for allegedly promoting un-Islamic views via his television programme “Fatah ka Fatwa”. The organisation also called for an immediate ban on his show. Fatah was also manhandled at an Urdu poetry and cultural festival.
6. Subhash Chandra: The Muslim organisation which targeted Tarek Fatah also declared a bounty of Rs5 lakh on the head of Subhash Chandra, the owner of Zee News for the telecast of Fateh’s programme.
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Pappu Yadav’s Bounty
The Lok Sabha MP openly declared that anyone who would bring tapes of corrupt officials would be rewarded Rs 25,000 while those who would beat them to death in public will be rewarded Rs 10 lakh. “If the government is not taking action against bureaucrats and ministers who are looting the poor then the Dalits should shoot the politicians responsible for deaths like that of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula,” he said.
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Bounty hunters in popular culture
1. Harrison Ford in Indian Jones
2. Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
3. Gerard Butler in The Bounty Hunter
4. Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained
5. Lee-Min-ho in Bounty Hunters
6. Christopher George in Chisum