He signalled, ‘Enemy ahead.’
Even as he did so, he heard the rustle of a plastic sheet being folded. The scout immediately waved to his team to crouch. Then he heard the distinctive sound of a gun being cocked. But it was not coming from his team’s side.
In one smooth motion, he slid the safety lock on his AK-47—the only one the team possessed (everyone else had 9 mm guns)—and brought up the barrel. He tensed to yell out a warning. But before he could do so, the quiet of the jungle was shattered by a voice screaming, ‘STF’, and a gun being emptied.
It was the gang’s designated cook who had yelled the warning and opened fire. He had spotted the team as he was folding his plastic sheet—the noise that had alerted the STF scout.
In a fraction of a second, the cook’s mind had considered and discarded multiple possibilities. The men were dressed in plain clothes, but were clearly not local tribals or hunters. He had not noticed any goats or cows, so they were not goatherds or cowherds either. By the time he had figured out all this, he had already raised the alarm.
Veerappan was on his morning constitutional when he was rudely interrupted by the report of a gun. Panicked, he searched for his rifle. It was three paces away. He leapt for it, grabbed it and scrambled for cover.
He looked around wildly, trying to make sense of the episode. Before his horrified eyes, Govindan went down, clutching his chest. But his despair turned to amazement as the man got up almost immediately. Gang members who had also seen the man go down told the police later that Veerappan’s trusted aide held a wad of currency notes in a pouch braced tightly against his chest. The low-calibre 9 mm bullet had hit the pouch. Though he was bruised, Govindan escaped unhurt.
Govindan’s narrow escape may seem straight out of a movie script, but history is replete with similar instances. Theodore Roosevelt survived an attempt on his life when the written speech in his pocket stopped the bullet. In 1915, a pocket watch saved Kamal Ataturk’s life.
Veerappan’s gang retreated into the forest, firing wildly as they fell back. The STF team responded with equal fervour. Within seconds, the scout had exhausted the bullets in his AK-47. Apart from Govindan’s narrow escape, nobody on either side was seriously injured—remarkable, given the number of bullets that flew around in that brief span.
One by one, the STF’s guns fell silent as they ran out of bullets. They paused to reload and take stock.
The gang had scattered like a herd of deer. After a few hundred metres or so, there was no clue for the pursuers. All they had left behind was some equipment, including a wireless set that had allowed Veerappan to eavesdrop on STF conversations and keep track of its movements. This critical piece of equipment was probably made available to him by someone with a vested interest to keep him free, though there is no tangible proof of it.
Veerappan’s gang was known to always fix a rendezvous before splitting up. But the rather abrupt encounter had left little time, though Veerappan, Govindan and his cook Chandra Gowda managed to stay together.
After surveying the scene, Ramalingam said, ‘We almost had them.’
Then he sighed and reached for the wireless. ‘Sir, I am chasing the gang. But can’t see them any more.’
Meanwhile, Veerappan shivered in the cold, but kept moving like a ghost. It had been a few days since the encounter with Ramalingam’s team. Veerappan and the handful of men left with him had already dodged their way past several layers of the STF, but encountered more.
A faint sound reached Veerappan’s ears. He paused and perched behind a huge rock. He turned slowly this way and that as he tried to decipher the origin of the sound.
A bunch of men in camouflage were stationed barely 30 metres away, their faces glowing in the light of a bonfire. Veerappan smiled grimly.
In the forest, a fire is a tactical blunder if one hopes to stay concealed, as even a glowing ember can reveal one’s position to the enemy. But the strictest of rules can prove ineffective against human nature. It was a bitterly cold night and this team was far from the direct line of observation of its senior officers. Though there were strict orders against movement, noise or light, the chill of the nearby Silent Valley had slowly eroded their will. They probably believed that Veerappan was miles away.
As Veerappan and his men slipped through the cordon, he said, ‘If I had more men and weapons, I could have made them pay with their lives for this mistake.’ Though the idea was tempting, he suppressed it. As morning dawned, Veerappan apparently said a silent prayer of thanks and swore never to return to the place that had given him such hellish experiences. He kept his word, though he sometimes pretended to be there, only to misguide the STF.
Later, non-STF police officers reached one of the slopes of Semmandhi in Kerala to conduct an investigation of the disastrous operation. They were armed only with lathis, their weapon of choice against one of the country’s most dreaded outlaw!
21
A Mother’s Wrath
July 2001
‘How much longer before the rendezvous point?’ I wondered as I silently cursed the heat and humidity and wiped away the sweat on my forehead.
Though I was quite fit for my age and had managed to keep pace with my men, the harsh terrain and unrelenting sun had taken a toll on the entire team.
Soon, I was part of a familiarization exercise with an STF team near a village on the easternmost part of our operational area. This trek was planned just a few months after I was recalled by the chief minister to take over the Tamil Nadu STF.
In all, there were five sections of ten men each. Each section had two veterans, whose movements were followed by the remaining eight. My section was at the head, with the other four following behind.
We had started at 6 a.m. When we paused briefly for a meal, half of the men ate swiftly and silently, while the others kept watch, some from treetops. Later, they reversed roles.
Some of the men crowded around a shallow pool, gulping liquid from green bottles. ‘Where did you get Sprite from?’ I called out.
Closer examination revealed that it was actually green-coloured water. There were elephant droppings all around the pool and in the water. Unlike big cats, which barely leave any trace, elephants are messy animals and litter indiscriminately. We always carried purifiers with us in the jungles, but the water remained green and muddy even after their use.
I knew I should have had the water to avoid dehydration for when it sets in one might not even feel the thirst. But I could manage only a couple of gulps before the gag reflex took over.
‘One more hour to the vehicle point,’ announced Inspector Rajarajan, the leader of the trek, rather suddenly, as if he had read my mind. Rajarajan, a seasoned STF veteran, knew the forest like the back of his hand.
The announcement sent a burst of energy through my exhausted body. ‘Not much longer now,’ I thought.
As we finished the climb, my buddy, Head Constable Sundaram, pointed to my right. On patrols, each person has a buddy who is responsible for his welfare—primarily security—and vice versa.
An elephant was feeding its calf. Rajarajan raised his finger to his lips. Quiet. Teams 2, 3 and 4 kept away from the mother. The first team had reached a flat grassy plateau.
‘Take a break,’ called out Rajarajan.
With a sigh of relief, I lay down and stretched my legs. They were beginning to cramp. I kept my boots on, but undid the laces to give some relief to my aching feet. My buddy passed me some dates and jaggery-coated peanuts. I munched away, gazing up at the blue sky. Little did I know that all hell was about to break loose!
One of the young constables, a greenhorn in the jungle, was in the last section. He was so fascinated by the sight of the mother elephant and her suckling calf that he approached them, camera in hand. The elephant immediately nudged the calf to its rear and faced the man.
Instead of recognizing the warning signs, he crept even closer. The elephant promptly raised its trunk and charged.
An elephant’s trunk is
capable of amazing dexterity. But it also contains 40,000-odd muscles. When it stiffens, it becomes harder than a steel bar. The mother brushed the constable’s arm with her trunk. It was enough to snap three bones.
Rajarajan immediately fired in the air. The other men also raised a hue and cry and distracted the elephant from her primary target.
Hearing the noise, I turned and saw a trumpeting elephant only 20 metres away, charging towards me. At a speed of 25 km per hour, she would be at my spot in three seconds!
I grabbed my AK-47 with such force that it caused a massive tear in my palm. I started rolling when a heavily built chap, face turned towards the elephant, crashed straight against my right knee. He must have weighed at least 90 kg. I heard a snapping sound and felt a wave of agony.
But I kept rolling towards a gradient. A second later, I found myself sliding down through stones and thorns, at almost 90 degrees.
After dropping about 10 feet, I came to a stop. Wincing, I drew myself to a sitting position. With all its human targets out of reach, the annoyed elephant stamped the ground and threw a dozen rucksacks helter-skelter. Then she marched towards the most obvious escape route from the clearing—the one I had just taken.
I still held my AK-47. I could see the pachyderm approaching. If the elephant attacked me, the bullets would not be of much help. But there was also no way I could outrun the charging animal, especially with my right knee screaming in protest at the treatment it had just received.
The elephant paused. I held my breath. It felt like eternity. Then the mother wheeled away abruptly and sped off, calf in tow.
Much to my relief, the STF men gave it a wide berth this time. I collapsed gratefully into the arms of my anxious buddy Sundaram, who had come scrambling down for me.
Rajarajan quickly calmed everyone’s nerves and got them moving. The boys, keeping a sharp lookout in the fading light, carried the rookie constable and me on their shoulders to the waiting vehicles. I felt hugely embarrassed, but reminded myself that nature and bullets do not make any distinctions according to rank.
The constable ended up in Ganga Hospital, while I was taken to another. Dr Rajasekhar of Coimbatore’s Ganga Hospital was always available to fix broken bones of STF troops. He was kept rather busy.
I went under anaesthesia for the only time in my life for a minor surgery on my injured palm. I had also snapped two ligaments in my right knee, but was able to avoid surgery, helped generously by the forced rest of three weeks in Chennai—the longest I ever had. Lying in bed at my home, I often worried about the operations ending in my absence. And then, there was the agonizing thought of attending any award ceremony with a ‘non-combat category injury’!
I missed the jungles terribly. I missed the kurunji flowers that bloom in Dhimbam Hills once in twelve years. I missed the simple meals stuffed in our rucksacks. Most importantly, I missed my boys.
In my mind, I prepared new plans to nab Veerappan. I was determined to see the mission through to a successful end.
I returned refreshed. But as luck would have it, a few months later in November the same year, I received orders to take over as commissioner of police, Chennai.
‘But my task is incomplete,’ I tried to protest feebly.
‘Do you have a time frame for when you will catch him?’ asked the CM.
I had to concede. I could not give a clear date, considering that the bandit had been elusive for close to twenty years now.
I moved to Chennai, wondering if I would ever return to the STF and finish the task. As it turned out, I would be back two years later under different circumstances and armed with a renewed resolve to accomplish my objective.
22
The Marina Beach Encounter
Year 2003
Soon after taking over as Chennai’s police commissioner, I instituted a system under which all known gangsters were graded from A-plus to D, in descending order. Each one was kept under surveillance. While a head constable was responsible for nabbing or booking the D-grader, an inspector was in charge of a B-grader and so on. Both deputy and joint commissioners watched over the A and A-plus categories. There was also an A double-plus category, whose activities I closely monitored.
One of the more useful takeaways from my short and eventful tenure in Chennai was my first encounter with SI Velladurai, or Durai as he was nicknamed. The association with Durai materialized because of a well-known Chennai underworld gangster called Veeramani.
Veeramani had the dubious distinction of being a clear A double-plus. While he raked in the moolah by peddling brown sugar, he was dreaded throughout Chennai for his extortion business. Several major financiers, who had faced difficulties in getting their loans repaid, allegedly used Veeramani’s help to cut delays in recovery. Rumour had it that some members of the film industry had appeared before him, either as supplicants or victims. Even some politicians had reportedly sought his help.
Veeramani was rumoured to conduct negotiations with trembling victims sitting under the moonlight on a catamaran a kilometre into the sea. The implication was that if they didn’t pay up, the next time they could end up as fish bait. Hardly surprising then that he boasted of a phenomenal recovery rate. His fearsome reputation ensured that issues in places as far off as Andhra Pradesh and Kerala were settled by merely invoking his name.
Veeramani was also known to have several girlfriends and safe houses, mostly along the beach. His favourite hiding hole was Ayodhya Kuppam, an erstwhile fisherman’s hamlet, ironically only a stone’s throw from the police headquarters on Marina Beach.
He also had a well-honed lookout system, which ensured that he got to know of any police movement in his area well in advance and promptly went underground.
‘If we are to nab him, it will have to be a secret operation,’ I told my joint commissioner, J.K. Tripathy.
‘I think I may have just the man,’ said Tripathy, who preferred to chew paan rather than speak too much.
Trippy—as I referred to him—had the sleep cycle of an owl. His sudden appearances in police stations were mostly nocturnal. In his previous posting, he had served as commissioner, Trichy, earning laurels for community policing.
It was here that he had met Durai. Once a history lecturer, Durai decided he would rather teach lessons to hardened criminals. He soon became known within the Trichy force for his daring encounters. But he was unknown in Chennai.
July 2003
The bald, scruffy-looking mendicant scratched himself and stretched lazily in the sun. He squinted at the group of men strolling along the beach. Even from a distance, the alpha male was obvious—a big-built man with curly hair and heavy gold chains around his neck glinting in the sunlight.
The mendicant gathered his saffron rags around him and nodded. He had spent hours looking at pictures of the man and had memorized every detail. He was indeed the person the mendicant had been looking for all along.
‘Come to me, Veeramani. It’s been a long wait,’ thought Durai.
Upon being tasked with getting Veeramani, Durai had shaved his head and donned saffron robes. He spent the next few days and nights lying next to a croton plant on the beach opposite Veeramani’s favourite slum stronghold, gazing at the sky and occasionally muttering to himself.
None of the policemen who patrolled the beach had any clue that this strange-looking fellow was one of them. His only backup was a buddy—another SI ready with a vehicle nearby.
That year, thousands of devotees of the Melmaruvathur Devi cult were scheduled to assemble at the beach in the afternoon of 27 July. Some had already arrived. Veeramani chose that day to brazenly take a walk on the beach, trailed by his acolytes, who were usually heavily armed.
As he neared Durai’s location, the latter came to his feet in one smooth movement and whipped out the Browning 9 mm concealed within his rags. ‘Police. Hands up. Surrender,’ he yelled.
Everyone around froze for a split second, except Veeramani. Then there was a blur of movement.
When it
was all over, Veeramani was incapacitated. His followers scattered in panic. Anticipating that they would regroup and return in force, Durai made his next move after buzzing for an ambulance.
A magisterial enquiry conducted subsequently ruled that Durai had followed standard operating procedure. He had made a reasonable attempt to arrest a fugitive of the law that was violently resisted. He had duly exercised the right of self-defence.
The effect of Veeramani’s death on Chennai’s underworld was immediate. Many surrendered; some even fled as far as Moreh near Myanmar border. I remember my batchmate Peter Ngahanyui, then ADG (Intel) Manipur, informing me of a sudden influx of Chennaiites in Moreh.
Rumour had it that several jailed criminals, who were due for bail, refused to exercise that option, instead preferring to stay within the safe confines of the prison. Some even protested to the court that they had never sought bail in the first place.
Though that particular episode was successful on the whole, another such op in Chennai landed me in hot soup. Deputy Commissioner Krishnamurthy had shot a don named Pannayaar in an encounter in the heart of the city. At a press conference, in response to a question on my views on such encounters, I had said, ‘If you trust a policeman to carry a gun, then you must trust him to use it wisely and effectively under the law. We don’t carry weapons around as ornaments.’ This comment caused a furore in some sections of the media that accused me of being trigger-happy.
Even as the dust settled on this episode, another issue arose. An article on ‘Intolerance of the Regime’ was published in The Hindu. The Speaker of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly issued a warrant for the arrest of N. Ravi, then editor of The Hindu, its publisher S. Rangarajan, its then executive editor Malini Parthasarthy and two senior journalists, V. Jayanth and Radha Venkatesan, for breach of privilege of the House. Since the warrant had come from the lawmaking body itself, it was sacrosanct. I had no choice but to get it executed. Eventually, the Supreme Court stayed the order. But the entire chain of events brought me into the frontline, especially with the media.
Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand Page 16