HUNTING DOWN THE BANDIT
K Vijay Kumar led the operations to nab Veerappan. This excerpt recounts how a hitman sent to kill the criminal ended up befriending him
The bigger question was: Who would lead the infiltrators? In keeping with the time-honoured dictum of setting a thief to catch a thief, Nataraj and Kannan identified a much-wanted don of the Chennai underworld, who agreed to take on the assignment in exchange for clemency for some of his other crimes... The STF gave him the call sign ‘One-eyed Jack’.
Negotiations proceeded without much trouble. An STF team arrived in Chennai to escort One-eyed Jack back for final parleys with Nataraj. But when the STF team was barely 100 metres away from the rendezvous point, they were stunned to see a team of the Chennai crime branch swoop down and arrest him. The STF’s dealings with Jack were conducted in such secrecy that the Chennai police had been unaware of the operation... Nataraj and Kannan had to come up with another option on short notice. They settled on Hidayatullah... While Hidayatullah had committed many crimes, his résumé was quite colourless, compared to Jack’s. It was this lack of ‘experience’ that would prove to be a huge disadvantage much later... Hidayatullah and his men entered Veerappan’s camp and were greeted warmly. They expected to be put through a gruelling routine. But to their surprise, their stay resembled a picnic... Their stay was largely uneventful... Veerappan took a liking to Hidayatullah, who was always punctilious about praying five times a day and did all his chores meticulously. One day, he told Hidayatullah he had been cheated out of some money by the chief of a fringe political group that was later banned for being pro-LTTE.
‘I gave him Rs 2 lakh for an ambulance. I believed he was an ideologue. But no ambulance came. He ran away with the money,’ said Veerappan through gritted teeth, his voice a mixture of anger, vendetta and helplessness. ‘That’s sad,’ commiserated Hidayatullah, but pounced on the keywords. ‘But why did you need an ambulance?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Veerappan hastily. As he got up and began to walk away, he seemed to stumble over a root. He hurriedly straightened up and looked around to check if anyone had noticed. Hidayatullah saw it out of the corner of his eye, but pretended not to notice anything.
Over the next few days, Hidayatullah observed that Veerappan always walked behind everybody else whenever the party moved—which was always at night. Initially, he thought this was just a security measure. But he also noticed that Veerappan always used a prop—often a tree branch— while walking. Many a times, he would walk into a bush or branch.
It soon became clear to Hidayatullah that Veerappan had a serious problem. ..
Hidayatullah had gone into the forest expecting to meet a demon. But the Veerappan he saw was a far cry from the indestructible bloodthirsty image that was projected over the years. Instead, he met an ageing, fumbling fugitive. A megalomaniac overpowered by bouts of melancholy.
A doting father, especially fond of his second daughter, whose photograph he showed all infiltrators. Late at night, he would fondly identify his birthplace, pointing out the village lights. Hidayatullah realized that though Veerappan was in charge, his advancing age had compelled him to delegate many of his responsibilities to Govindan... By now, Veerappan trusted Hidayatullah completely.
One day, when Govindan and the others went into the forest on a hunting trip, Hidayatullah and his men were left alone with Veerappan. Though it was broad daylight, Veerappan lay down and pulled a sheet over his head. Within minutes he was fast asleep. His snores resounded through the clearing. Hidayatullah walked up to Veerappan’s prone form, his mind racing and heart pounding. There was a big stone nearby. ‘I just have to pick it up and bring it down,’ he thought. ‘It will all come to an end and I will be a hero.’
His throat and mouth were totally dry. He swallowed, then bent down and picked up the stone. A debate raged in his mind. He was faced with the unenviable choice of killing a sleeping defenceless man or sparing the life of somebody who had snuffed out hundreds of innocent lives. As Hidayatullah weighed his options, Veerappan stirred in his sleep and turned to one side. A series of images flashed through Hidayatullah’s mind—Veerappan showing his daughter’s photo, pointing to his village with childish uninhibitedness.
Slowly, with trembling hands, he lowered the stone and walked back to his bed. His mate looked at him quizzically. Hidayatullah shook his head silently... I have no doubt that One-eyed Jack’s presence in the clearing that day would have brought Veerappan’s story to an end right there. But Hidayatullah and his men had never committed murder and were unable to bring themselves to do so that day. One can hardly blame them for showing compassion, even though Veerappan had not done so for any of his victims.