As luck would have it, the wireless set in Ramapura Police Station was kept near the window and was set at full volume. Even through the hail of bullets, Veerappan heard Venkataswamy’s assurance.
He quickly signalled to his men to withdraw.
Later, Venkataswamy narrated to me that by the time he arrived with his men, the bandits had already melted back into the forest. Five men were lying dead in the veranda. Nagesh and Nagaraju were barely alive. They had lost a lot of blood and were hastily sent to Kollegal Government Hospital.
The entire police force in the region was embarrassed by Veerappan’s act, one that only added to his reputation for boldness. But his men told us after their surrender that the bandit’s thirst for vengeance was not extinguished. He had not forgotten Harikrishna and Shakeel Ahmed.
August 1992
‘Anna, that fellow Kamala Naika is at it again,’ said one of Veerappan’s men. ‘He’s the one who introduced that snake Nagaraj to us. He’s been meeting Shakeel Ahmed quite frequently of late.’
Veerappan looked up intently. ‘Shakeel Ahmed? Isn’t he the one who has sworn not to get married till I’m killed? His poor parents are never going to have the joy of seeing their son married.’
As his men filed away, leaving him alone, Veerappan’s mind flashed over the events of the last few months. Nearly a month after his attack on Ramapura, the STF had engaged some of his gang members in Nallur village on 15 June and killed four of them. They were also keeping a close watch on villagers suspected of providing rations to him. This had infuriated him no end. As if killing his men wasn’t enough, Harikrishna and Shakeel were also trying to cut off his supply lines.
‘I need to hit back decisively and finish off these bastards once and for all,’ thought Veerappan. ‘But how?’
He sat there for hours, thinking, planning. As the shadows began to lengthen, a tentative smile appeared on his face, which grew broader and broader.
Early the next morning, there was a knock on Naika’s door. ‘Who could it be at this hour?’ wondered the police informer, rubbing his eyes. The knock became more insistent. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ he snapped, and opened the latch.
The very next second, the door was shoved open from outside. The impact sent Naika sprawling to the floor. As he looked up, his drowsiness vanished instantly. Veerappan crossed the threshold, followed by some heavily armed men. Naika was seized roughly and hung upside down from the roof. His family was rounded up.
Veerappan walked up to Naika, gripped him firmly by his hair and growled, ‘I know you’ve been acting as an informer for that dog Shakeel, so don’t waste my time denying it. You have an important decision to make. I’m going to wipe out your entire family as you watch. Whom should I start with?’
Naika wept, ‘Please, no. They are innocent. They didn’t do anything. Kill me, but spare them, I beg you.’
Veerappan let him cry a while longer and then patted his head. ‘You can still save their meaningless lives and your worthless skin. Would you like to?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes. I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t hurt them, please,’ he begged.
Veerappan grinned. ‘I like the sound of that. Here’s what I want you to do …’
A couple of hours later, an agitated Naika burst into Shakeel Ahmed’s office.
‘What’s up?’ asked Shakeel.
‘I have some exciting news, saar,’ said Naika. ‘Veerappan’s brother Arjunan is camping nearby. He has some 40 kg worth of tusks and is desperate for a buyer. I’ve offered to arrange a deal. This is a great chance to nab him.’
Shakeel jumped up. ‘I’ll get the men ready. We’ll go right away,’ he said.
But Naika wasn’t done. He held up a hand to slow Shakeel down. ‘Saar, they said the buyers must come in a white car, wearing white clothes. How about we go in front and your men follow at some distance? Once we make contact with Arjunan, your men can race to the spot and get him and his gang.’
With no reason to suspect his informer, Shakeel agreed. He went to inform Harikrishna.
Harikrishna was in Bangalore when Shakeel called. ‘Tell Naika to stall the deal for a day. Let me get back. There’s no way I cannot be part of the raiding party,’ he said.
On 14 August, Harikrishna, Shakeel and Naika set off for a place called Meenyam in a white Ambassador. There were three other constables in the car with them. A civilian lorry, filled with fifteen policemen in plain clothes, followed about 2 kilometres behind. Harikrishna was driving, with an AK-47 in his lap.
At around 1 p.m., they approached a bend in the road. Harikrishna noticed some boulders blocking the path.
‘Please stop, saar. I’ll remove the rocks,’ said Naika.
Even as the car was slowing down, he opened the door and leapt out.
‘What’s his hurry?’ thought Shakeel. And then the truth dawned on him. They were in a white car. All of them were in white clothes, but Naika had a bright red towel draped around his shoulders. In the forest, that would be extremely prominent.
‘It’s a trap,’ Shakeel shouted, turning towards Harikrishna. Both men lunged for their weapons, but before they could do anything, bullets rained down upon the car.
The two men battled heroically, but were heavily outnumbered. Veerappan’s gang still had relatively primitive weapons. There were about twenty guns, spread out across an ambush site chosen so well that it was a certain death trap. As Rudyard Kipling memorably pointed out in his poem ‘Arithmetic on the Frontier’, the superior technology of the British troops counted for nothing when confronted with a skilled Afghan marksman and his ten-rupee jezail.
As the car jerked under the hail of bullets, Veerappan nodded in satisfaction. ‘No one could have survived that,’ he thought.
Then he paused as he heard the sound of a speeding lorry. He signalled his men to stay concealed.
The lorry raced up; the policemen inside it were beside themselves with anxiety after hearing the gunshots. As they neared the spot where the car had halted, Veerappan gestured again. Immediately, logs were hurled down, blocking any retreat.
Veerappan’s men opened fire once more, while the policemen concealed themselves as best as they could and returned fire. After some time, another vehicle was heard approaching. Veerappan signalled his men and they fled back into the forest.
The vehicle was a civilian bus heading from Meenyam to Kollegal.
The investigation of the ambush was conducted by Venkataswamy, the same man whose inspired bluff had saved the day when Veerappan attacked the Ramapura Police Station.
Venkataswamy later narrated the incident to me. Among those he had spoken to was Inspector Mandappa, who was travelling in the police lorry that was ambushed by the gang and was wounded in the gunfight that followed.
Mandappa had shuddered as he recounted the horrifying scene he saw that day.
The Ambassador in which Harikrishna and Shakeel were travelling had multiple bullet holes. The car seats were stained with blood and littered with broken glass.
As the bus screeched to a halt, male passengers rushed out to assist the policemen lying on the ground. Mandappa recalled their shocked expressions when they saw the state of the two men in the car.
There were six shotgun bullet wounds on Shakeel’s body and and Harikrishna’s body too was riddled with bullet holes. Apart from the two officers, four other policemen died in the exchange of fire that day, while another seven were seriously wounded. Kamala Naika also died that morning. But Veerappan did not suffer a single casualty, causing his reputation to grow further as he claimed credit for the attack.
Harikrishna’s death was the first time an SP had been killed in a shootout with a criminal in Karnataka. The 15 August flag-hoisting was a miserable ceremony for his colleagues. But Veerappan’s largest bloodbath was still to come.
6
The Good Friday Massacre
July 2001
Life in Sathyamangalam was a series of patrols, mostly routine, but not devoid o
f danger. It was elephant territory and we had to be doubly careful never to cross paths with the wild animals. I had merely a section of ten STF men with me, but invisible to me were more troops as backup.
On one patrol, while following up a lead, we were in the forests along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. All of us were on edge, not just due to the hostile terrain, but also because we were on the turf of a deadly tusker, which had already killed three people in both states in the last few months.
Just then, I slipped and slid on a slick slope. Warily, I looked around, trying to see if I had brushed against any leaves of aanai miratti—commonly referred to as Devil’s Nettle or elephant nettle—during my descent. The itching the plant induces is so terrible that elephants are known to go crazy after brushing against it. If that was not enough, there were hundreds of leeches on our track.
The lean man in front of me turned around, concerned. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked.
I nodded and replied, ‘A couple of tumbles are par for the course when one comes into the forest for a patrol with DSP Ashok Kumar, no?’
Ashok simply smiled, shook his head and mumbled something so softly that I was unable to catch it.
I noticed Ashok wince and surreptitiously scratch his calf. ‘Tick rash troubling you again?’ I asked.
He made a face and nodded. ‘Let’s have a look,’ I said.
Ashok’s leg was a horrifying sight. The rashes, if you could call them that, were like boils. Some had burst; others were on the verge of it. ‘You have been neglecting this for a long time. Why don’t you take time off and see a doctor?’ I enquired.
‘Every time I plan a visit to the doctor, I get some fresh intel and decide to do just one more combing operation. Maybe this will be the lucky one,’ he said. ‘Who would ever believe this slight, soft-spoken man is one of the most decorated veterans of the Tamil Nadu Police, who took part in the operation to crush Naxalites under Walter Davaram in Vellore and Dharmapuri between 1980 and 1985?’ I thought.
Ashok turned around and resumed walking. I followed, paying more attention to the terrain this time. But I still could not stop myself from thinking about what Ashok Kumar had witnessed on that black day in the history of the police force. And yet, he had come back for more of the same.
Ashok Kumar was present at the deadly encounter that had led to the formation of the STF. It was a day that had sent shockwaves through the police and public of the three southern states. Twenty-two people had died on 9 April 1993, but they were collateral damage, as Veerappan’s target was an SP of the Tamil Nadu Police, K. Gopalakrishnan, affectionately nicknamed ‘Rambo’.
When I asked Ashok Kumar if he ever thought about the Good Friday massacre, he took a deep breath, as though to steady himself, and said, ‘Every single day. I don’t think I’ll stop till we finally get him.’
9 April 1993
Rambo used to head a forty-two-man team called the Jungle Patrol—named after the force formed and commanded by the Phantom in the popular comic series. It was after the brutal murders of Shakeel and Harikrishna in 1992 that the Jungle Patrol was further strengthened.
Extremely well built, with huge biceps, Rambo was an imposing sight. So imposing that his comrades from his stint as DSP in Ramnad district recalled that whenever he would nap after a long night on the job in his residence-cum-camp office near a school, awestruck children would peep in, giggling as they pointed to his huge muscles.
Like Veerappan, ‘Rambo’ Gopalakrishnan also belonged to the Vanniyar caste—even sharing the same fiercely martial sub-caste, Arasu Padayachi—and knew the area extremely well. For all his size, he moved with feline grace.
A man to lead from the front, Rambo also had the distinction of having personally looked down from most hilltops in the area. He commanded strong loyalty from his team, not just because he, on occasion, rustled up tasty meals for them but also due to the fact that he dipped into his personal savings for his men if ever the Jungle Patrol’s salaries did not arrive on time.
Apart from the policemen reporting to him, Rambo also had an extensive network of informers and guides—many of whom had been associated with Veerappan in some way in the past.
One of Rambo’s senior-most guides was Kolandapaiyan, the elder brother of Veerappan’s trusted aide, Sethukuli Govindan. Kolandapaiyan used to be one of the top men in Veerappan’s gang during the days when he was principally an elephant poacher. But he had drifted away and was now trying to lead a reformed life.
On the morning of 9 April, also Good Friday that year, a huge banner was found in Kolathur village, taunting Rambo in coarse Tamil slang, daring him to come catch Veerappan at a place called Suraikamaduvu. A furious Gopalakrishnan took the bait hook, line and sinker. He summoned his team.
‘Things don’t seem right,’ Kolandapaiyan tried to express his reservations.
‘I am going, no matter what,’ said Gopalakrishnan. ‘What is bothering you?’ he asked.
It seemed as though Kolandapaiyan wanted to say something, but changed his mind. He shrugged and picked up his gear. ‘We should be careful,’ he said.
As Gopalakrishnan neared Palar Bridge, the jeep carrying him and his men broke down. They abandoned the vehicle and borrowed two buses from the Karnataka policemen stationed at the bridge on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border. One bus carrying Gopalakrishnan, fifteen informers, four policemen and two forest watchers took the lead. The second bus, carrying Inspector Ashok Kumar and six Tamil Nadu policemen, plus an escort party from the Karnataka Police, followed.
A restless Rambo stood near the door of the lead bus, an AK-47 reclining on his shoulder, his left hand gripping a steel bar behind a seat, ready to pounce.
Meanwhile, Veerappan, who, as per a debate in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly just a week before this incident, was speculated to be in Mumbai, reclined lazily on a rock overlooking a track next to the dry Palar River—the only route for Rambo’s motorcade. He kept a close eye on his explosives expert, Simon, as he made his final preparations. Simon was obviously not too devout a Christian, because the fact that his handiwork would take several lives on such a sacred day didn’t seem to have bothered him in the least.
Gang members who surrendered later revealed that on that fateful day, Veerappan’s men had just one.303 and twenty muzzle-loaders between them. In terms of firepower, they would have been vastly outgunned by Rambo’s party. But the balance of power had shifted in the outlaw’s favour, thanks to the explosives they had forcibly procured from the owners of several black-granite quarries in the area.
The gangsters heard the rumble of bus engines and sighted the two buses, but not Rambo’s jeep. Confused, they wondered if their prey had stayed away. Then a shrill whistle from Veerappan dispelled their doubts. Even from a vast distance, his eyes, sharpened by years of living in the jungle, had spotted Gopalakrishnan.
Simon joined the leads of a 12-volt car battery linked to the mines; all hell broke loose. The earth beneath the buses erupted, superheated to over 3,000 degrees Celsius. Shockwaves spread, chasing each other, and threw the buses into the air. The bus in front, with Rambo in it, bore the brunt of the impact, instantly turning into a coffin on wheels. The rubble and stone, thrown upwards at speeds of over 1,000kmph, came crashing back to earth in a mixed shower of mud, metal and gore.
Gopalakrishnan was thrown out of the vehicle and fell into a nearby ditch, with severe injuries on his left leg, left hand and face. Mangled body parts rained down on bushes and rocks alongside the road. Some pieces of flesh got stuck in the branches of nearby trees.
The first bus was reduced to a warped mass of steel. Pieces of its chassis lay scattered all over. The tyres were torn from their rims. Elsewhere on the killing field, ripped parts of steel had mixed with bloodied body parts.
Even Veerappan, who had ducked behind a rock when the blast occurred, was stunned by the sight of the carnage. He started to shiver and sweat. For a moment, one of his lieutenants thought he might have to give his chief a coupl
e of slaps to snap him out of his panic attack. But something else did the trick—gunshots from the buses.
The Jungle Patrol was fighting back!
Ashok Kumar, who was following in the second vehicle, recalled that as the bus in front of him was blown to bits, lots of mud splattered on the front windscreen of his vehicle. The driver slammed the brakes.
Ashok leapt down, followed by Head Constable Krishnasamy, who carried a light machine gun (LMG). The two men sensed movement near the bushes and realized that the gang members had crept down. They wanted to finish off any survivors and loot their weapons. Ashok Kumar began to fire his AK-47 immediately. Krishnasamy joined in, as did the other policemen, and sprayed the surrounding area with bullets.
After some time Ashok Kumar shouted at his men, asking them to stop the indiscriminate firing. Bullets were exchanged from both sides for a while after that as the gang tried to outflank the surviving policemen.
Gradually, the firing died down and Ashok Kumar realized that the gang had fled. He surveyed the surroundings grimly. Fourteen pits had been dug in a row, each 10 feet apart. These pits had been filled with potent explosives, connected by a long stretch of fuse wire. This entire setup had been concealed with stones and mud. The wire had been drawn at a distance of some 200 feet up a rocky hill, where the gang had lain in wait for Rambo and triggered the explosion when his vehicle was in the middle of the pits.
Shock finally set in, and a trembling Ashok Kumar counted twenty-one charred bodies. The groans of the wounded resonated in the air. As he advanced cautiously, he saw Rambo being carried by two constables.
‘Take him to the second vehicle. Load all the other wounded on it and get them out of here fast,’ he yelled.
Unfortunately, one of the constables named Sugumar, who eagerly wanted to be among the first to strike, had been hurled a fair distance away and was only spotted after the bus had already left. He died shortly thereafter.
Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand Page 5