Yielding to Veerappan

The Karnataka government concedes Veerappan's demand to send jailed activist Kolathur Mani to negotiate former Minister H. Nagappa's release from the brigand's custody.

CAUGHT yet again in a cul-de-sac in the Veerappan imbroglio, the Karnataka government has, as usual, decided that the only way forward is to placate the forest brigand-turned-abductor. After holding out for nearly three months, refusing to send the jailed Periyar Dravida Kazhagam activist Kolathur Mani, whom Veerappan has repeatedly asked for as an emissary, the Karnataka Cabinet decided, on November 23, to withdraw the cases filed against Mani, allow him to be released and then request him to play the role of a negotiator in securing the release of the abducted former Karnataka Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader H. Nagappa. In an audio cassette sent to Nagappa's family on November 18, Veerappan had given the government a 12-day deadline to send Mani. Any failure to do so, he threatened, would lead to the beheading of Nagappa.

But before the government could withdraw cases filed against Mani (under various provisions of the Arms Act and the Explosive Substances Act, and for allegedly abetting Veerappan in his crimes), the Karnataka High Court on November 28 granted Mani bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Mani now has to execute the bail in the Kollegal and Chamarajanagar courts where trials in the cases concerned are going on. Once that is done, he can be enlarged on bail, provided there is no judicial intervention. According to Mani's lawyer, the body warrant issued by a Tamil Nadu court (pertaining to a 1993 case registered in the Tiruchi police station) should not cause any problem, since Mani is only listed as a witness in that case.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government has made it clear that Mani will be arrested the moment he stepped into the State. Unlike Karnataka, Tamil Nadu will not withdraw the cases against him.

With Mani's foray into the jungle expected soon, the kidnap drama could be entering a new phase. Speculation is rife as to what Veerappan's demands would be once Mani begins negotiations.

THE decision to send Mani followed another concession by the Karnataka government to withdraw its Special Task Force (STF) from the forests and call off the hunt for Veerappan. Long-time watchers of the seemingly endless Veerappan saga, feel that whatever the nature of the pressures mounted by Nagappa's family, members of the Opposition and religious heads of the Lingayat community (to which Nagappa belongs), a clearer, more focussed and certainly more determined approach should have been adopted by the S.M. Krishna government. The message to the brigand should have been, as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has decided on, that hostage-taking will not pay. On the contrary, the Krishna Cabinet's decision will only embolden Veerappan, who has over the past two decades made a career of hostage-taking.

To be fair to the Karnataka government, it must be said that in the immediate aftermath of the August 25 abduction, it had refused Veerappan's demand to recall its STF personnel to the bivouacs. But the bravado did not last long. Mixed signals from the government, as the days wore on, made the STF personnel unsure whether to go after the brigand or to sit back and allow him to dictate matters. Making matters worse was the fact that there was - as has been the case for over 15 years - no perceptible information about Veerappan's whereabouts, save for a vacated campfire in the Kalmatturpatti reserve forests. A team of National Security Guards (NSG), two Indian Air Force Mi-17 helicopters, and the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu STFs were of no avail in pinpointing the brigand's hideout. The NSG and the helicopters are long gone, the former citing quite correctly that its charter was not to locate the gang, but only to apprehend it.

The catalyst for the latest volte-face of the government on the Mani front - Mani has been in Karnataka's jails for almost a year - was the intervention of religious heads from both the Lingayat and Vokkaliga sects. Holding a rally in Bangalore on November 20, they resolved that the government was not doing enough to secure Nagappa's release and that they would take on the responsibility to do so if Veerappan wished to surrender (as dacoits in the Chambal valley had done in the 1970s). Some of them even threatened to enter the forests. Their intervention seems to have forced a wavering Krishna, who as it is has very few options, to act. Krishna would also not want to cross swords with the religious leaders, given their huge following.

Krishna's initial reaction was reconciliatory, offering the bandit a "fair and free'' trial if he surrendered. The Cabinet went a step further by deciding to drop the cases against the bandit. The decision could have become a legal embarrassment for the Krishna government, as had a similar move in 2000 following the abduction of Kannada actor Rajkumar. The government then attempted, as had been demanded by Veerappan, to drop the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act or TADA proceedings against 51 of the alleged associates of the bandit. The Supreme Court came down heavily on the move, terming it "not good in law'' and not in keeping with the requirements of Section 321 of the CrPC, which allows the prosecution to withdraw cases against accused persons under certain provisions. The court termed the government's move "a package deal''.

The move to drop cases was initially opposed also by retired Karnataka police officer Abdul Kareem whose son, Inspector of Police Shakeel Ahmed, was gunned down by the Veerappan gang in 1993. Kareem, who had successfully thwarted the Government's move in 2000 by filing a public interest petition in the Supreme Court, threatened to oppose judicially the move, calling it "a surrender to the blackmail of an elusive bandit''. He was, however, cajoled not to do so by the Nagappa family and Lingayat leaders. Kareem relented after a 10-minute conversation with Krishna.

THE Veerappan imbroglio was further enlivened in Bangalore when former Karnataka Director-General and Inspector-General of Police (DG & IGP) C. Dinakar released, on November 21, his book Veerappan's Prize Catch: Rajkumar. Dinakar, who was in charge of the police force when Rajkumar was kidnapped in July 2000, alleges in the book that Rs.20 crores was paid as ransom to secure the actor's release.

Dinakar's 318-page book says that the ransom was paid in instalments: Rs.5 crores each on two occasions by Krishna through his son-in-law V.G. Siddhartha; Rs.5 crores by Krishna through the then Deputy Inspector-General of Police T. Jayaprakash (who is now IGP, Intelligence), which was handed over to a contact in Erode (Tamil Nadu); Rs.1 crore sent by Rajkumar's wife Parvathamma to Chennai and handed over at the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's house; Rs.2 crores handed over personally by Parvathamma to Bhanu, one of the emissaries to Veerappan, at the latter's residence in Bangalore; and Rs.2 crores collected by members of the film industry and handed over at Karunanidhi's house in Chennai. According to Dinakar, another Rs.22 lakhs provided to secure bail for the TADA detainees was not utilised since the Supreme Court rejected their bail appeal.

Dinakar has said that investigations by the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) showed that a chunk of the ransom money was embezzled by R.R. Gopal, Editor of the Tamil magazine Nakkeeran. Gopal, who met with the brigand and played the role of an emissary on more than one occasion, did not venture into the forest during the Rajkumar abduction after initial contacts with Veerappan.

Besides the details of the ransom, the book gives a blow-by-blow account of the modus operandi employed by the Krishna government to secure Rajkumar's release and the virtual "dancing to the tunes of the brigand by the S.M. Krishna government''. The book, written in the first person, claims that Krishna spoke to Veerappan on November 14, 2000, using the mobile phone of one of the emissaries after Rs.5 crores was handed over by Jayaprakash: Veerappan is supposed to have told the Karnataka Chief Minister, "Avangale vittuttengo'' (I have released them). Krishna is then alleged to have thanked Veerappan profusely.

Government and, surprisingly, even Opposition figures have lambasted Dinakar for disclosing after two years, information that he was privy to when in power. Krishna, who admits that his image has "blurred'' a little in the recent past because of the Cauvery and Veerappan problems, will take legal advice before replying to the allegations made in the book. According to Krishna, Dinakar's book has serious implications for both the State and Union governments and it was time to strengthen the Official Secrets Act to prevent a recurrence of retired officers penning articles or books using classified information that they were privy to when in power.

In the aftermath of the book's release, a meeting of the Karnataka Council of Ministers resolved that the content of the book was "baseless, fabricated and false''. Both Krishna and Karunanidhi have denied that any ransom was paid to secure Rajkumar's release. Police officers who have been named in the book have also criticised Dinakar, resulting in a free-for-all slanging match.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the book, it leaves many questions to be answered with regard to the modus operandi of the government vis-a-vis with relation to the Rajkumar episode. For example, if money was paid, why did Krishna, and not the Rajkumar family, pay the money? Where did the money come from? Did intermediaries pocket chunks of the ransom money (Veerappan is alleged to have complained to Bhanu about Gopal's alleged misappropriation) ? Why did Krishna not call for police action against Veerappan immediately after Rajkumar was released (it was nearly a week before the STF started operations again)? The Tamil Nadu CB-CID claims that it recovered written evidence from Veerappan's kith and kin showing that Rs.25 crores was received as ransom. Where did this extra Rs.5 crores come from? Was it given without the knowledge of Dinakar? If, as alleged by his own DG & IGP, Krishna did pay a ransom, did he take his Cabinet colleagues into confidence? Did Krishna inform his party and party president Sonia Gandhi?

Even as the Karnataka government stands on a cliff's edge, the Tamil Nadu government, despite a visit to Chennai by two Karnataka Ministers and their pleas to Jayalalithaa to call a temporary halt to the operations to catch Veerappan, has not agreed to fall in line. Jayalalithaa has, from Day One of the Nagappa kidnap, consistently said that she will neither call a halt to the Tamil Nadu STF's search operations nor send emissaries to talk to Veerappan. Nothing has so far forced or convinced her to change that stand.