Israel joins hunt for 'lord of the
jungle' By S Ramesan
CHENNAI
- After outwitting and outgunning the police for four
decades, brigand Veerappan's reign as lord of the dense
jungles of southern India may now come to an abrupt end
- with a little help from Israel.
Representatives of an inter-disciplinary team of
the Israeli Military Industries and Integrated Security
System Group visited Bangalore in January, at the
invitation of the state government. They offered
expertise in ending what has been billed as the world's
longest-running manhunt.
Reports say that
Veerappan has killed about 130 people, including
security personnel and forest officials. He is believed
to have slaughtered about 2,000 elephants for their
tusks and plundered sandalwood and other forest wealth,
but has so far survived on superior jungle survival
skills that have made him into a legend.
Official sources say that the Israelis are due
to make a second visit soon to prepare a feasibility
report on nabbing Veerappan. "We are open to making use
of advanced technology from anywhere," Karnataka state's
director general of police, T Madiyal, said when asked
about the Israeli offer. The Israeli involvement is
handled with utmost secrecy and officials evade direct
answers on the subject. But news of the Israeli
connection has been trickling in from Jerusalem and has
evoked hostile political reactions in both Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu states, which have carried the brunt of
Veerappan's misdeeds.
Karnataka home secretary
Adeep Chaudhury said: "I have no knowledge of the
Israeli offer." But officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity, say the offer includes a provision of
sophisticated weaponry, target-identification devices,
night-vision devices, satellite mapping, communication
intercepts and decoding.
Israel has had known
successes in identifying and eliminating members of
Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas by using
high-technology weaponry. Israel's Integrated Security
System Group specializes in combating low-intensity
conflicts, international terrorism and internal
subversion. The right-wing central government in New
Delhi, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has pursued
close ties with Israel, and even entered into arms deals
with Tel Aviv, disregarding decades of firm support for
the Palestinian cause.
Veerappan, now in his
late 50s, once led a 150-member gang, but this has been
reduced to a core group of about three aides who have
hunkered down in an area measuring nearly 20,000 square
kilometers of dense forests, spread over the three
southern Indian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and
Kerala.
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have had
special task forces involving a total of 1,500 officers
and personnel on the job since the early 1990s. An
estimated US$3 million is being spent annually by the
two states in trying to catch the elusive brigand. At
times, even commandos from the elite National Security
Guards and the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF)
have been deployed in the jungles to help the special
task forces in catching him.
But there have also
been differences between the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
government about how to go about tackling Veerappan.
Even now, Tamil Nadu's director general of police, K
Vijayakumar, has shown little interest in accepting
Israeli assistance. Tamil Nadu's home secretary Muni
Hoda said it would be difficult to catch him as long as
he enjoyed the support of people who live in and around
the forests.
"Even the mighty US army has failed
to catch Osama bin Laden because of the loyalty he
enjoys. If they could catch Saddam Hussein, it was
because he was betrayed by people close to him," said
Hoda.
Tamil Nadu's special task force is now
engaged in winning the confidence of the villagers in
the forests, among whom Veerappan has acquired a "Robin
Hood" image. Veerappan is said to reward villagers who
cooperate and ruthlessly eliminate any suspected police
informants, making the task of capturing the brigand a
near impossibility. The forest, which is his home, is
dense and visibility is poor - and the villagers are
known to alert him on troop movements.
Officials
who do not want to be identified say that Veerappan may
be willing to surrender if he is assured that he would
be treated decently and not kept in jail along with
ordinary criminals. Under these conditions, they say, he
would be prepared to undergo a fair trial. In 1997, when
the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party,
which champions the cause of socially deprived groups,
was in power, Veerappan sought amnesty and offered to
surrender. But the plan fell through because the DMK
leadership was publicly perceived as being far too
sympathetic to him.
Veerappan caught global
attention after he abducted a popular Karnataka matinee
idol, Rajkumar, and held him hostage for 108 days in
2000. Rajkumar was released unharmed, but there was
speculation that a large sum of money had been paid as
ransom.
Veerappan struck again in November 2002,
this time abducting a well-known Karnataka politician,
Nagappa. On December 8, 2002, the hostage's body, ridden
with police bullets in a botched rescue attempt by Tamil
Nadu police, was discovered in the Karnataka forests.
The tragedy led to bitter acrimony between the
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments, already at
loggerheads over the sharing of the waters of the river
Cauvery. For a while after that, the police and BSF
combed the forests and even brought in helicopters - but
Veerappan stayed out of their sights.
The
legendary bandit has also shown officials that he is the
master of the jungles by allowing ready access to a
Tamil magazine, Nakkeeran. He permitted its editor to
interview him on video in the midst of the Rajkumar
kidnap drama. That editor was held under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act, but is now out on bail.
