One of the World’s most dangerous outlaws to have ever lived.

In two decades Veerappan’s saga had become global, from the Time magazine to a Chinese daily reporting the story of a lawbreaker who had managed to hide from the law. Some Indian dailies placed him in the league of Osama bin Laden.

Koose Munisamy Veerappan was an Indian bandit who was active in the field of smuggling for 36 years and kidnapped many politicians and actors for ransom. He was active in sandalwood smuggling and poaching of elephants in the forests of the Southern Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

The notorious criminal was wanted for killing 184 people; half of them, police officers and forest officers. In his career, he had killed around 2,000–3,000 elephants, smuggled ivory worth $US 2,600,000, and about 65,000 kilograms of sandalwood worth approx. US$22,000,000.

Veerappan was born in Gopinathan village in 1952 and the geography of the area had a big role to play in his life and to the people who came in contact with him. From a young age, he was exposed to a world of poaching and killing. His father was a poacher and he began his criminal career by assisting his uncle Saalvai Gounder who was notorious as a poacher and sandalwood smuggler.

At the young age of 10 years, Veerappan gunned down his first elephant. His uncle was so impressed with his act that he gave him his personal gun. Veerappan initially worked as a sandalwood and ivory smuggler, killing elephants for their tusks. As he continued to acquire the skills of sandalwood and ivory smuggling, his rank elevated among his peers.

Veerappan committed his first murder, of a forest guard at the age of 17 years. After gaining experience he broke away from his uncle. In his reign of 40 years, he killed a total of 184 persons.

In 1986, before he gained notoriety he had a mysterious escape after an arrest. This points to the differences in ethnicity of the two states where he operated and there were rumors that he had protection from higher-up authorities.

Becoming Notorious

In 1987, Veerappan kidnapped and murdered a District officer from the state of Tamil Nadu. This brought his activities to the attention of the Indian Government.

He was totally heartless, and his methods were in full display when he lured R. Srinivas a senior forest officer whom he considered responsible for his sister’s death, into his trap and beheaded him in November 1990.

The killing of IFS officer P. Srinivas further brought attention to his activities.

In August 1992 to avenge the death of his four gang members, he trapped Superintendent of Police Hari Krishna, tied him up with grenades, and blew him up with five other policemen.

Veerappan began eliminating people whom he suspected to be police informers. He killed a person from his native village for traveling in a police jeep. It was easy for him to escape into the forests which he knew like the back of his hand.

After committing his crime he could easily escape from one state to the other and the State jurisdiction prevented police officers from entering the other state to nab him.

One of the testimonies of Veerappan’s gang members stated that he could name the incoming animal by the sound of the crunching of the leaves.

The majority of the villagers in his area supported him. An investigator had estimated that out of 10 villagers in his area, six would be his informants.

With such massive ground support, it was no surprise that Veerappan evaded capture for many years. In 1990, the village from where the Special task force recovered 65 tons of sandalwood from Veerappan’s hideouts; villagers said that he was a hero, one of them and they were proud that he had made it big.

Formation of Special Task Force to nab Veerappan

The states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu formed a Special Task Force in 1992 to catch Veerappan. Officers of the two states Sanjay Arora and Shankar Bidri began coordinating their efforts to nab him. In February 1992 his Lieutenant was killed by the Karnataka task force.

Three months later Veerappan attacked the Ramapura police station killing several policemen and capturing arms and ammunition. In August 1992, Veerappan laid a trap for Shakeel Ahmed who killed his lieutenant and killed him along with five others.

The police of two states began search operations. A bounty of Rupees 5 crore was announced on his head. The task force eliminated members of his gang and now only 5 were remaining with him.

Palar blast

In 1993, Veerappan killed a person whom he suspected to be a police informer. A team of 41 members of police and forest officers was called to investigate the case.

The team was traveling in two vehicles and landmines were detonated underneath the two vehicles. The blast occurred near Palar and 22 members of the team were killed. This was Veerappan’s single largest mass killing.

The arrest of Veerappan’s wife

Veerappan had seen his would-be wife in forests and had gone to ask for her hand from her father but she was not interested in marrying a bandit. After a few days, he followed her and wooed her, and cajoled her into marrying him. She found him to be gentlemanly and agreed to his request.

In 1993, the task force arrested Veerappan’s wife and charged her with aiding him. Veerappan in return kidnapped a bunch of forest officers so that he could listen to his wife’s voice.

One of his accomplices went to the place where his wife was imprisoned to get her voice recorded in an audio cassette. As the accomplice reached the forest with the audio cassette of his wife’s voice the hostages were released. His wife was later acquitted of all the charges.

Ransom demand

In the 1990s Veerappan kidnapped many police officers and it is believed that money was often paid as ransom and Veerappan buried the large amount of money that he received in various parts of the forests.

The kidnapping of actor Rajkumar

In July 2002, Veerappan kidnapped the famous actor from Karnataka, Rajkumar, and his son-in-law from the place where they had gone to attend a housewarming ceremony. There was outrage in Karnataka and its capital the city of Bangalore where strikes were organized.

Negotiations were conducted through R.Gopal, the editor of a Tamil magazine who visited the forest several times for discussions. Veerappan had certain demands.

Actor Raj Kumar was held for 108 days and finally released without harm. A police officer later suggested that 20 crore rupees were paid by the Karnataka government for his release.

The kidnapping of a former minister

In August 2002, Veerappan abducted a former minister Nagappa who had been a minister from 1996 to 1999 from his village house.

The Special Task Force worked to get him released but the efforts failed and his body was found three months later in a Karnataka forest. The reward now offered by the Karnataka government on Veerappan’s head was increased to Rupees 15 crore.

Operation Cocoon and the Capture of Veerappan (18th October 2004)

Operation Cocoon was launched by the Special Task Force to catch Veerappan and his associates.

The operation was headed by K. Vijay Kumar and involved the infiltration of the enemy camp with the help of tribal people. Some media reports stated that he was being“shunted to the jungles” while other well-wishers in the media sympathized with him.

His supportive wife shifted to Sathy to provide him moral support leaving their daughter behind in Chennai to pursue her master’s with their friends.

“You have eight years of service left. Even if it takes that long, don’t worry” his wife remarked.

“You think it will take me eight years to catch Veerappan?”

“Well considering the fact that you can’t even find your slippers at home, it would be quite an achievement if you could actually nab Veerappan” was her retort.

Many STF men had vowed to remain single until they nabbed Veerappan. One of them informed Vijay Kumar “The forest is full of thorns, rocks, and shrubs.In some parts, you can hardly see 10 feet below and there are 400 small villages. It is impossible to keep an eye on all of them at once, but Veerappan can go to any of them for food and shelter.”

The jungle’s undergrowth and poor visibility made day and night virtually the same.

“Just tie a handkerchief on your eyes right here in class and day turns into night. Walk on dry leaves to enhance the element of stealth,” Vijay Kumar advised them. The idea was to bridge the forty-year head start Veerappan had due to his long presence in the jungles.

As Veerappan was well aware of the terrain of the forests having lived there for decades it was decided to bring him out of the forest.

The whole operation was planned for ten months, the execution took three weeks and the final operation lasted for only 45 minutes.

Special Task Force members infiltrated villages where Veerappan used to visit as hawkers, masons, waiters, bus conductors, and other local service staff. He was aging now, being 52 years of age and his troops had been reduced to only four persons.

Veerappan wanted to take medical treatment for his eye and was planning to come out of the forest. On the day of the operation, Veerappan was escorted out of the forest to an ambulance, which was a police vehicle, by one of the security men who had infiltrated his gang. There were 35 policemen stationed in the village, a few security persons hiding in tankers, and others hiding in the bushes.

Veerappan and his gang were warned by the policemen and asked to surrender which they did not heed to and started firing at the STF personnel. The STF retaliated by firing grenades and bullets. Veerappan died on the spot while his men died while being taken to the hospital.

After the operation, the STF recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, a 12 bore Remington pump-action gun, a self-loading rifle, two hand grenades, and cash worth Rupees 3.5 lakh. The killing sparked off celebrations in STF camp, with its personnel bursting firecrackers and lighting colorful flares, brightening the forest sky well before dawn.

The STF chief later remarked ‘He was a worthy foe, he was not easy to get.”

His death was described as the “death of a demon” by The Guardian media group.

The death marked the end of a man who once ruled a sprawling 6,000 sq km thickly forested area where he killed men in cold blood, killed elephants for their ivory, and cut sandalwood trees for smuggling in the process of building a vast criminal empire.

Movies on Veerappan:

Many films and television series have been made on Veerappan and are named below.

Movies

· Attahasa- A 2012 Kannada film based on the life and death of Veerappan.

· Killing Veerappan- A 2016 Kannada film based on Operation Cocoon.

· Veerappan- A 2016 Hindi full-length feature film.

· Sandhanakaadu- A 2017 Tamil television series based on Veerappan’s life.

References

1)Wikipedia.

2) Veerappan — Book by K. Vijay Kumar