Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand by K. Vijay Kumar

Author:K. Vijay Kumar [Kumar, K. Vijay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-02-04T18:30:00+00:00

August 2000

Gopal began his journey to meet Veerappan on 2 August. During the entire crisis, he went into the forest five times, even as the Karnataka government ordered the STF to cease all operations in the area. By moving just one man into his camp, Veerappan had managed to create an asymmetrical fight.

While the STF operations had officially been called off, a few mavericks of the Tamil Nadu STF kept their confidential informants (CIs) active, with strict instructions only to observe and report suspicious activity in the forest. ‘Do not engage with them under any circumstances,’ it was emphasized.

By 10 August, a Forest Department plot watcher met Mohan Nawaz. He claimed to have seen three gang members, along with four strangers. ‘One of them was in green dress, the others in neat clothes. They came from the roadside, rested for a while and then dispersed,’ he said.

Nawaz felt a frisson of excitement run through him. Veerappan and his hostages could not be very far. Unfortunately, before he could act on this intelligence, Veerappan’s trusted aide, Govindan, got to know about some strangers being spotted in the area and immediately rushed to him.

‘The sons of bitches must be from the STF,’ Veerappan snarled. ‘Tell Gopal.’

Gopal made a huge fuss about this. ‘Veerappan had clearly stated that the government must do his bidding or else blame itself for Rajkumar’s fate,’ he told both chief ministers.

The option of mounting an STF rescue op was taken off the table even before it was assembled cogently. The STF men were dispatched on other tasks. Some were asked to do traffic duty, with comical results. More used to hefting rucksacks and AK-47s than managing traffic, they probably ended up causing more jams than easing them.

The STF’s Bannari camp wore a deserted look, with just a handful of members left behind—a storekeeper and a few guards, checking the residual inventory at night.

From Veerappan’s vantage point, he could see that the lights were still on at the camp. Beside himself with fury, Veerappan’s ultimatum came swiftly, ‘Withdraw the STF immediately; Nawaz and Hussain first.’

I remember thinking that Veerappan’s demand had only reinforced the kind of monumental threat he considered both Nawaz and Hussain to be and the amount of psychological damage the duo had done to his morale.

And while both states scrambled to comply, I thought, rather ruefully, that in their haste, they had overlooked one vital clue.

If Veerappan was so well informed about the STF’s activities, he, or at least some of his gang members, were obviously keeping a close watch on the Bannari camp and, therefore, must be geographically close to it. Perhaps the two governments simply chose to ignore this fact because nobody wanted to risk an operation that might leave the authorities with the daunting prospect of handling an outraged public and a vociferous media.

It was later revealed that Veerappan was hardly 5–10 km from the Bannari camp. His strategy was as simple as it was audacious—hide in the open. He would move camp

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