Thug is a violent criminal. In the early days of the British rule in India,

and long before that travelers died in the hands of Thags-

the members of a macabre religious cult.

The victims were strangled in a ritual form of murder Thagi.

Their bones were broken to enable their burial in smaller graves.

By the mid 19th century, a British campaign wiped out the cult completely.

But their Anglicized name lives on as part of English vocabulary.