TRIVANDRUM, 23 October 2004 — With a handle bar moustache, dark complexion and an agile body, V. Babu was rounded up and tortured several times by police simply because he looks exactly like Veerappan, the forest brigand who died in a shootout with police last week.
The 46-year-old small-time farmer began to ape the bandit in every manner once the villagers started calling him ‘Veerappan’ for his looks. He bought a double-barrel shotgun, stitched a pair of olive green uniform and roamed forests in the northern Kasaragod district for eight long years.
But it was a role-reversal. This Veerappan never killed anyone, poached on elephants or engaged in kidnappings. Instead, he terrorized the plunderers of natural forest and remained a true keeper of the flora and fauna.
Four years ago when he went to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, he was detained by the Special Task Force (STF). He was set free four days later, but had to spend some time in hospital to regain his health. After that he had had several such “encounters”.
Babu is a fan of Veerappan even though he despised his terror tactics. The look-alike refused to take food for two days after the real one fell to the STF bullets.
“I never agreed with his terror tactics. But I always saluted him for his guile and guts,” he told local television channel.
In the post-Veerappan era, he is under tremendous pressure from his family to shed his ‘image’. “My wife threatened to divorce me and take all our three children with her if I fail to trim the moustache and stop patrolling forests,” says he.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring state of Karnataka villagers are roaming the jungles where Veerappan spent three decades looking for his hidden treasure. A police officer said villagers believed the slain bandit left behind millions of dollars buried in plastic bags in the woods.
D.N. Borkar, the director-general of police in Karnataka, said his officers “are on the job of finding any money left behind by Veerappan.” “They will also ward off treasure hunters. If we find anything unaccounted for from the villagers there, we will take action.” The Sathyamangalam Forest is a dense jungle 250 km east of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state.
Police suspect that Veerappan might have stashed millions of dollars earned from extortion, kidnapping, and smuggling ivory and sandalwood logs.
The Karnataka state government denies paying any ransom for the release of movie star Rajkumar from Veerappan’s clutches in 2000. However, a retired police officer, C. Dinakar, who probed the actor’s kidnapping, claimed in a book that the state government paid 200 million rupees ($4.3 million) in cash to Veerappan to secure the actor’s freedom.
Police found some Indian currency in plastic bags during a search operation in the jungle after the actor’s release, and said they learned from interrogations that Veerappan buried his moneybags under trees. Police said they recovered 350,000 rupees ($7,600) and two AK-47 assault rifles after killing Veerappan and three associates on Monday.
— Additional input from The Associated Press
