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Veerappan abducts Dr Rajkumar, fuels his own downfall
Rajkumar’s hometown Gajanur lies on the fringes of the thick MM Hills forests on the Tamil Nadu side of the border with Karnataka.
One of India’s most-wanted criminals, forest brigand Veerapan’s most high-profile abduction was that of Kannada film demi-god Dr Rajkumar and three of his associates on a Sunday night on July 30 in 2000 in Tamil Nadu’s Gajanur.
“Rajkumar’s kidnapping was the turning point in Veerappan exposing himself, and the beginning of his downfall,” recalls KN Senthamaraikannan, who led the intelligence and coordination operation in which Veerappan was killed four years later. At the shoot-out, the face of Operation Cocoon, Vijay Kumar, and other members of the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) were present including Senthamaraikannan.
Rajkumar’s hometown Gajanur lies on the fringes of the thick MM Hills forests on the Tamil Nadu side of the border with Karnataka. He was there for the house warming ceremony of his newly built bungalow when Veerappan struck at 9.30pm, fully armed and accompanied by 12 henchmen. Though there were 20 people working at the farm and 15 others with the film star, the sight of Veerappan numbed them into inaction, Rajukumar’s wife Parvathamma said at the time.
Chief ministers M Karunanidhi and SM Krishna urgently discussed the situation, and decided that they would send R Gopal, editor and publisher of the Tamil journal Nakkeeran, as an emissary to negotiate with Veerappan. Rajkumar, then 72 years old, was with the bandit for 108 days but remained unharmed. After his release on November 15, 2000, Rajkumar said that Veerappan treated him with “respect”.
Senthamaraikannan recalls that in his five years of Operation Cocoon, the main challenge was that Veerappan remained confined in the forest which he knew like no one else.
“He was totally isolated. Communication was impossible unless Nakeeran magazine contacted him. Even a photograph of Veerappan was not available,” said Senthamaraikannan. The officer did not have first-hand details of how negotiations happened, but spoke of how the details from Rajkumar’s abduction helped them eventually kill Veerappan. In his five years, they studied his conditioning, what he needed, how he thought, and gradually homed on his weaknesses.
They found that he was in need of weapons, manpower, and later a cataract surgery. They also decided after Rajkumar’s kidnapping that they would not flush him out using force. “With Rajkumar’s kidnapping, it gave us an insight into Veerapan’s mindset. He exposed himself as becoming greedy for money. Earlier, he had a way of life. From being so close to nature, his behaviour changed into something artificial and he became more like a local criminal,” said Senthamaraikannan.
Their first breakthrough came when they found that Tamil extremists such as those from the banned Tamil National Retrieval Troops (TNRT) had joined Veerappan before he kidnapped Rajkumar. “They planted ideas in Veerappan’s mind, like if he kidnaps someone important, he would get more money and if he attacks police stations, he would get weapons,” said Senthamaraikannan.
The Tamil extremists encouraged Veerappan that he could be like Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, the separatist leader from Sri Lanka, and that he could dominate the forests like Prabhakaran dominated the island nation’s Vavuniya forests.
With time, the task force kept chipping away. Its efforts led to the decades-long hunt for the kidnapper, elephant poacher, and sandalwood smuggler, ending on October 18, 2004. On that day, through a mole, they lured Veerappan out of the forest. “He was so strong and confident inside the forest, nobody could get in and catch him there,” said Senthamaraikannan. Outside, he could be overpowered.
In Vijay Kumar’s book, ‘Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand’, one section is dedicated to the sensational abduction of Rajkumar. Ironically, years later, when filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma made the film “Killing Veerappan”, the reel life hero who killed real-life bandit was played Shiv Rajkumar, the son of Dr Rajkumar.
