(chiefly India, Pakistan, Myanmar) A bandit or armed robber, especially in former parts of British India.
1893, Bithia Mary Croker, "The Dâk Bungalow at Dakor" in "To Let" etc., Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1906, p. 118, https://archive.org/details/toletcroker00crok
[…] she had harangued us on the subject of fever and cholera and bad water, had warned us solemnly against dacoits, and now she was hinting at ghosts.