Indian police have said that former ‘Bandit Queen’ Ms Phoolan Devi was shot dead in New Delhi today.
"She was shot outside her house. She was brought to hospital...where she was declared dead", senior police official Suresh Roy said.
Aaj Tak television said Ms Devi (37) was shot by unidentified gunmen and was taken to the capital's Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival.
She became a member of the Indian lower house of parliament in 1996, was defeated in 1998 elections and made a comeback in 1999.
Ms Devi rose to notoriety in 1981 when 22 upper-caste men were massacred in the northern Indian village of Behmai. She denied leading the killers but surrendered to police in the central state of Madhya Pradesh in 1983.
She was later portrayed in the film Bandit Queenas a rape victim from a low-caste community of boatmen whose career of crime began as asearch for revenge on her attackers.