He may have been involved in up to 931 murders by strangulation between 1790 and 1840 performed with a ceremonial rumāl, a handkerchief-like cloth used by his cult as a garrote.
[1][2][3] While Behram is sometimes suspected of having committed 931 murders, James Paton, an East India Company officer working for the Thuggee and Dacoity Office in the 1830s who wrote a manuscript on Thuggee, quotes Behram as saying he had "been present" at 931 cases of murder, and "I may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men, and I may have seen strangled 150 more.
The thugs were covert members of a group, and the term 'Thugee' typically referred to an act of deceitful and organised robbery and murder.
[5] Buhram used his cummerbund or rumāl, with a large medallion sewn into it, as a garrote to execute his killing.
Through sheer skill, he could cast the rumal to cause the medallion to land at the adam's apple of his victims, adding pressure to the throat when he strangled them.