JOIN US'Super chor' Bunty takes Metro-ride in public view
''I am not a thief. These are cooked up stories,'' says Devender Singh aka Bunty, who wants me to believe that ‘crooks’ in the police had defamed him.
He avoids eye contact, carries a shy air about him, and is not willing to talk about his past life. He protests when Deccan Herald seeks to know about his ‘550 exploits’ as a ‘super thief’.
It is a chance encounter on a metro ride. A youth wearing faded jeans and a Nike baseball cap steps into the train at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium station. He avoids drawing attention but two of his companions, desperate to reveal his identity to commuters, suddenly announce, “He is Bunty Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!”
But this week, he is not ‘twice as lucky.’ Bunty who claims to have left the criminal life back was in the news the other day. According to reports, Delhi and Haryana police were chasing him. Haryana police say the man spotted behind the wheels of a car stolen from New Friend’s Colony in Delhi was none other than Bunty.
The man who inspired the creators of reel-life Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! or Bunty Aur Babli appears to have given the police a slip in real life. After a hot pursuit for several kilometers, the police failed to catch Bunty, who recently was also on reality show Bigg Boss.
Police say Bunty had amassed ill-gotten wealth to the tune of Rs 6 crore, which includes a fleet of cars, expensive watches and even a fine dog, before he reportedly gave up crime a few years ago.
Why did he quit Bigg Boss in a hurry? “They were trying to defame me. Salman Khan introduced me as a chor, which I am not. I told him he was wrong in saying so,” says Bunty on the metro-ride. He wants to disassociate himself from his past that ultimately brought him into the limelight. He is keen to be treated as a gentleman after he has accepted past mistakes, instead of trying his luck in TV shows. Bunty had created a scene on Bigg Boss by using foul language, and was thrown out of the show early.
“Even the producers who used my name to sell their films have not given me the money they promised,” Bunty complains, and makes a request for somebody to call the producer on his behalf.
He even gives a number that he claims belongs to the producer. He also wants to know how to stop the media from calling him “super chor”. “Can I take them to court?”
Then he tells what he has been doing these days: “I have opened a detective agency, Krishna Detectives, in Jor Bagh.”
He gives his business card, on which is drawn a pipe-smoking detective wearing shades, a long coat and a hat, and staring into a magnifying glass. Indeed, a ‘detective’ on the run.