Datura metel
The Thugs, gangs of professional robbers and murderers who wandered the roads of central India, would sometimes use preparations of "Datura metel" to stupefy the rich merchants whom they favoured as victims, before strangling or stabbing them. The English word thug traces its roots to the Hindi ठग ("ṭhag"), which means 'swindler' or 'deceiver'. Accounts of the Thugs written by early 19th century colonial authors tend to evoke an orientalist fantasy of a bloodthirsty (quintessentially) Hindu cult offering human sacrifices to the goddess Kali, while modern scholars tend to perceive the reality of Thuggee to have been more a matter of criminal activity undertaken for gain by organised groups of disaffected and recently unemployed soldiers of both Hindu and Muslim faith.