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Veerappan hated vehicles
 In this the fourth part of ADGP Vijaykumar's exclusive interview to chennaionline on Operation Veerappan, the STF chief talks about some of the charges made by Veerappan's wife Muthulakshmi and certain others. He repudiates these charges as baseless and having been made out of frustration since "their icon has been smashed, and they can't accept the reality that Veerappan has been eliminated".
On the opinion of Muthulakshmi and some others that Veerappan would not have moved out of the forests and that too towards a city, or that he was possibly doped or poisoned or that it was a fake encounter and that Veerappan was already dead when police arrived on the scene, Vijaykumar feels these are all charges being made by people to cast a slur on the STF which has rendered admirable service in pursuing and eliminating a gangster.
"Where is the question of doping or poisoning Veerappan?
These substances cannot be hidden. Post-mortem will reveal these substances if used. No such thing has been revealed in the post-mortem."
"There is no need for the STF to fake an encounter", Vijaykumar added. "The STF has not carried out these operations for the sake of promotions or rewards. Do they mean to say that Veerappan and his senior associates were all dead and that their bodies were lying at one place for us to find? These are baseless charges aimed at casting aspersions on the selfless work of STF, since for some of them the STF comes in the way of their illegal operations for monetary gains. They don't want the STF to get credit for what they have done."
WHY VEERAPPAN MOVED OUT?
 Some of them have raised questions about why Veerappan moved out of the forest at all. "This was due to an elaborate plan executed by Senthamarai Kannan and his men to play upon Veerappan's fear that his eye was damaged. The mole of the STF had created panic in Veerappan to such an extent that the bandit was convinced that if he did not get immediate treatment from an eye surgeon in a town or city, he would lose his vision for good. The mole told him that Veerappan would be as good as dead if he lost his vision. Therefore, Veerappan was convinced into making a secret trip to an eye surgeon in Trichy and use the trip to also conclude some arms deals".
"What the STF did was to get the mole to play up the extent of damage caused to Veerappan's eye, which developed a cataract. It was not all that serious but we got the mole to play it up, and Veerappan was finally convinced that he must get his eye operated upon or else he would
end up as a blind man. Veerappan was drawn into working on a plan to move to a town, get his eye treated, and get back to safety".
Veerappan, who was in the MM Hills area in Karnataka, was encouraged to move east to the forests in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. He was there for about two weeks, and the STF was keeping tabs on him and the movement of his gang.
"The mole, at our instance, convinced Veerappan to move in a vehicle to Dharmapuri or Trichy and get his eye treated. After the operation, they would also meet up with some persons to negotiate purchase of arms for the gang".
"We had converted a Tempo Traveller available with the police into an Ambulance. Some changes were made to suit our operations. All this was done in Coimbatore. Senthamarai had made elaborate arrangements in this regard."
According to information made available to us by the moles, Veerappan and his gang wanted to move out together as they had planned to shift base anyway. It was expected that Veerappan would make the move on 20th.
 Ironically, Veerappan who felt that vehicles and he didn't get along together, agreed to use the ambulance arranged by the mole. That was because he was desperate to get the treatment done. Secondly, the mole had gone through an elaborate set of precautionary measures to convince the bandit that all was well and that he was safe. Police SI Vellithurai was to travel by the ambulance along with driver Saravanan, a constable.
The mole had so arranged that he would meet Vellithurai near Papparanpatti police station, Vellithurai would have only half of a slip of paper; the other half would be with the mole. When Vellithurai was picked up and taken to Veerappan's camp, the bandit saw for himself that the mole had half the slip, and the other half was with Vellithurai. Any suspicion about Vellithurai vanished when he brandished the slip. That was confirmation that a man trusted by the mole had come there, and that the secret code
procedure was followed without any hitch.
VEERAPPAN WAS WEARING T-SHIRT:
On the charge made by persons close to Veerappan that the bodies were naked at the Dharmapuri government hospital, and this showed that the encounter was fake since Veerappan and his men must have been wearing clothes, Vijaykumar said Veerappan and his associates were wearing clothes. Photographs taken after Veerappan's death showed him in a T-shirt and a pant, said Vijaykumar. (See photograph published here). The clothes were cut just before the post-mortem was conducted and they must have been available with the hospital and presumably handed over to the RDO for the probe, he added.
DISTRIBUTION OF BULLETS:
Some relatives have also raised questions about a bullet wound on his forehead and that this showed there was no ambush and no firing from a distance (and that the bullet must have been fired at close range after his death), Vijaykumar said those seeing his body at the hospital would have only seen his face (the rest of the body would have been covered). He actually carried more bullet wounds (there must have been at least eight bullet wounds), the STF believes.
"Also, when there is firing at a closed vehicle from two sides, there cannot be an equal
distribution of bullets to all the occupants or that all of them would suffer the same number of bullet injuries. A person like Sethukuli Govindan suffered more bullet injuries (close to 40) because he sat in the rear portion and he was seated side-wise, with the result his body would face firing from both sides. Veerappan and two others were facing the front portion of the vehicle and thus the bullets received by them were bound to be less.
VEERAPPAN'S FINGER PRINT AND THE BRUISES STORY:
 One of the charges made against the STF was that Veerappan's fingers were bruised, and therefore there could be no truth in the ambush theory. Vijaykumar pointed out that the mark on Veerappan's fingers was that of ink used to record his finger prints and that they were not bruises at all! "Finger prints were taken, and that was all. It's upto the police and the investigation authorities to establish Veerappan's prints and whether they want to do a match with available prints. The role of the STF ended with the ambush of the ambulance and the handing over of the bodies to the hospital. Thereafter, it is upto the police investigation to go into and follow-up other aspects. A needless hue and cry is made of ink marks to record the finger prints", he said.
R Rangaraj
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