Known by different nomenclatures like bandit king, elephant poacher, sandalwood smuggler and the much recent Robinhood of India, Veerappanthe forest brigand was finally killed in an encounter this month. This man popular for his handlebar moustache, hacked more than 120 people to death during his reign of terror spanning over four decades, felled thousands of sandalwood trees worth and sandalwood worth $22 million, and poached about 2,000 elephants for more than 88,000 pounds of ivory worth $2.6 million and what not! It took about 20 years and more than Rs 1000 crores to finally kill Veerappan, making this manhunt, Indias biggest and most expensive.

In the beginning there was a brigand

The year was 1952, the date18th January. Kuse Muniswamy Veerappan Gounder was born in Gopinatham Village in Karnataka state (India). He was lovingly called Veerappan, which means he who is brave. He started off with committing crimes at a very young age. In fact Veerappan began his career in crime as an ivory poacher and is reputed to have killed his first elephant when he was just 14. He committed his first murder at the age of 17too small an age when boys his age would be falling in love. He used to operate from the dense Sathyamangalam forests and used to reportedly distribute money earned from smuggling and kidnappings to villages around the forests. Doing this earned him the title of Robinhood of India and the local people would worship him as their king. But then as they say, every coin has two sides Veerappan too had a scar face hidden behind his generous image.

It is said that Veerappan used to boast about how he killed his victims, cut them into pieces and fed the flesh to fishes in ponds around the forest. Veerappan was notorious for his guerilla tactics, kidnappings, beheadings of his victims and killing more than 120 people of which majority were police officers and forest department officials. His fame to crime increased day-by-day, forcing two of biggest states in IndiaTamil Nadu and Karnataka to launch a massive manhunt and also form a Special Task Force (STF) for capturing Veerappan, dead or alive. Despite this, he could never be capturedin fact, the only time Veerappan was put in jail was in 1986; but he soon escaped killing four policemen and paying a bribe of $2,000. The STF formed by both the states had more than 1,500 officers and personnel. As if that was not enough, even the Border Security Force (BSF) was assigned a task to capture the brigand; though they failed miserably in it.

So, how was he hunted down?

Capturing Veerappan was not an easy task. He had informants in villages around the forest to tip him off about any police forces entering the forest to hunt him down. Reports say that his jungle hamlets were often booby-trapped and heavily mined, to keep trespassers away. Moreover, his people were in and around the 6,000 sq km jungle and so it proved to be a hell of a task. And he did all this with old hunting rifles, while the police forces had all the latest gadgets, including AK-47 assault rifles and night vision binoculars. At one point for time, 2,000 police officers were searching for Veerappan around the forests. Finally their efforts paid off on 18th October 2004 at Dharmapuri village in Tamil Nadu (India). Veerappan was killed in an encounter that had been planned over months. Police officials say that all through these years, Veerappans troupe was getting weaker and weaker and he was on a lookout to hire more youngsters into his group.