NAME: Koose Muniswamy Veerappan

AGE: About 60

NATIONALITY: Indian

CLAIM TO FAME: India’s (ex)-most wanted man.

FOR 17 years he was the most wanted man in India. He had killed at least 120 people and 2,000 elephants, and had smuggled over 88,000 pounds of ivory and sandalwood worth millions. He roamed 3,600 square miles of raw jungle, and hunted down and killed police officers, foolhardy enough to try and nab him. On Monday last, Veerappan — his name meaning ‘brave’ — walked into a carefully laid trap that ended his saga. An undercover policeman lured him into an ambulance on the pretext of taking him to hospital for medical treatment for his wounded eye. As the ambulance emerged from the forest, a tipped-off police party ambushed the van. As the driver ran off, Veerappan and his three accomplices were left inside with nowhere to run. Twenty minutes and a gun battle later the bandit king and his henchmen were dead.

However, there are whispers that it was a fake encounter, as the Indian police are notorious for not giving wanted fugitives any chance to surrender. And the evasive Veerappan had been too much trouble for too long to be taken chances with. For, the only time that he had been caught, in 1986, the bandit had managed to escape soon afterwards. It is alleged that the provincials governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had been spending, annually, roughly five crore rupees since 1990 in a desperate bid to hunt him in the Satyamangalam forest. And what about the reward? There hasn’t yet been any announcement as to the recipient of the amount that ranges anywhere between Rs20 million to Rs50 million.

Born in Gopinatham, a Tamil village in Karnataka, Veerappan killed his first elephant at the age of ten, so the story goes, and his first man at 17. When the government banned the export of ivory in early 1980s, he and his gang shifted to smuggling sandalwood. By the mid-eighties, he gained national attention following the killings of several Karnataka forest officials. But Veerappan lived by his own jungle law. He knew no caste and did not loot or maim for blind revenge — only those who crossed his path were eliminated. In later life Veerappan turned political and had connections with two extremist Tamil nationalist groups. While his earlier kidnappings were purely for money, he later started making demands for the release of imprisoned Tamil activists and militants. In 2000, he kidnapped one of southern India’s most popular film stars, Rajkumar, and released the 71-year old actor unharmed after 108 days.

In addition to his sharp survival skills, Veerappan also had the support of the simple villagers who lived in his jungle haunt. Life had been hard for them and the ban on poaching, once their community business made them angry with the government and supportive of the bandit. While utterly ruthless with law enforcement personnel and rivals, he had strong emotional attachment to family and close aides. His daughter is reported to have being expelled from the convent where she was admitted last year by a lawyer. Following news of his death, hundreds of people arrived in the small town of Dharmapuri to get a glimpse of the local Robin Hood. Those who got to see the body could not be convinced that it was Veerappan’s. The huge handlebar moustache that had been his trademark was, strangely, trimmed. While it is debatable whether the bandit could have been caught alive and brought on trial, there are many who are now relieved that his reign of terror is over. — Uzma Ejaz