Tusker at Ten, would have been an apt title for a quaint story of the 1930s of the “humble” beginnings of a legendary shikari. Only that after 17 years, which witnessed the murder of 2000 tuskers, over 150 people and who knows how many tigers and leopards, this sounds like a bad joke.

For more than three decades, Veerappan’s reign was unquestioned in the forests of Bandipur, Mudumalai and parts of Chinnar especially in the Kollegal and Sathyamangalam divisions.

Hailing from Gopinatham village in Kollegal Taluk of Karnataka, Veerappan was noticed at the age of 18 for his marksmanship and was absorbed into a gang of poachers, where he quickly rose to become the leader. He is said to have killed his first tusker at the age of ten.

Within ten years his notoriety had become well-known due to his spectacularly cruel revenge killings. His victims included senior forest and police officials, a minister and many villagers, who he suspected of being informers. He lured his victims into the forest, tortured them, beheaded them, riddled them with bullets and blew them up with grenades. He kidnapped ministers and film stars and businessmen at will for huge ransoms, but his bread and butter came from selling ivory and sandalwood.

Towards the end of his career, Veerappan carried millions of rupees as reward for his head, probably the highest in the country. There were at least a few thousand policemen and paramilitary forces after him. He eluded them for 20 years to be finally killed on October 18, 2004.

S. Krupakar and Senani Hegde, celebrated photographers and film-makers, have been studying and writing about the culture and biodiversity of the western ghats, especially the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, for the past two decades. They live in a jungle home on the periphery of the now erstwhile, Veerappan territory.

In 1997 they were kidnapped by the brigand and had the good fortune of being released after spending two weeks with him. Here they recall the incident and talk about Veerappan from a conservation perspective.

On the eighth of October 1997 , we were back at home after a normal field day. The sun had set and twilight was slowly fading to darkness. It was close to seven. Tired from the day’s work I had had a refreshing bath and had walked out to see dark clouds slowly covering the emerging stars. Swallows were back to roost, squeaking in their nests in our portico. It was very still and quiet, but my sixth sense told me that something was moving in the dark a few feet away. We live in elephant country and no one walks around here after dark, unless it is a wild animal. “Who’s that?” I called.

Suddenly something uncoiled like a spring out of the shadows and I felt a gun on my chest. A face with a heavy moustache came into focus. It looked so artificial that I did not have to think. “Ah! Veerappan!,” I said. “How do you know?”, he was taken aback, but I spotted a smirk under his moustache. “You are too famous”, I said, ending the conversation. But my throat was dry and my voice sounded weak.

Some gesticulations from him and like wild dogs a number of men came charging out of the darkness commando-like, guns pointing ahead.

I heard Krupakar shouting from the bathroom “What the hell is going on?”. By then there was heavy thumping on the bathroom door, and a lot of shouting. Krupa emerged in his shorts, dripping. Three gun barrels were on him immediately. They searched him, even though he was almost naked.

They now moved into the house ransacking it. Apparently they were looking for weapons that they thought we possessed. Within a few minutes, we had regained our composure, and started convincing him that whatever information he had got about us, was not right. It took us a long time to convey a few simple things, as we had to talk in our broken Tamil. But, he was in no mood to listen to us. However, as we continued to try, the situation calmed down to the extent that tea was made and we had it together. It sounded funny, sitting in our own house, when he ultimately told us that we were being kidnapped !

We had to spend the next two weeks with him, and managed to talk ourselves out of the situation. The major satisfaction was that we came out free without anybody having to yield to his demands.

There was no doubt that he was a mean criminal, but what interested us was that he was probably the only person who had spent more than 5000 days and nights in the forest. His capacity to observe was excellent. We spent most of our time with him trying to explore his knowledge of wildlife. He talked about the lion tailed macaque and the Nilgiri tahr, which are not found in the area where he was believed to be operating. He also talked about the sighting of a rare herbivore, the size of a cow, near the Bhavani reservoir and we thought it could be the Nilgai, which is known to be extinct from these areas.

Though Veerappan started as a small-time poacher, he grew into a notorious sandalwood smuggler and elephant poacher. During the mid ‘80s, he accounted for the killing of most of the prime adult tuskers in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, which is arguably the best and the last refuge of a viable population of Asiatic elephants. This poaching of adult tuskers resulted in a terribly skewed sex ratio.

These developments were of extreme concern to environmentalists. But they were ‘mere forest offences’ to the police. Veerappan was taken as a serious threat only after he started the gruesome revenge killings, first of forest officers and then of policemen.

There were some curious things about him that made him the legend that he was. For example many scientists from Karnataka believed that his presence had been beneficial for the forests. For many people, he was a Robinhood. He is supposed to have killed over 2000 tuskers(for all practical purposes, it could not have been more than 300), but for all you know there were many others who were happily operating in his shadow.

In some areas of the forest where he was operating, officers or guards had probably not entered for a decade and had no idea what was happening inside. Ironically, in other areas the presence of the Special Task Force(STF), set up to hunt the brigand, had actually reduced poaching and timber smuggling. In fact, a few years ago, the STF had picked up some known elephant poachers on charges of being informants to Veerappan; this had dramatically brought down poaching in the south eastern parts of Mudumalai and Bandipur.

In the ‘90s, Veerappan’s activities had shifted to blackmailing and extorting the owners of the granite quarries, in the Male Mahadeshwara(MM) Hills forests of Karnataka. As the police started suspecting that Veerappan was getting his explosives from the quarries, they were shut down. It would again be ironical, that with his death, the quarrying for black granite, which has high international value, may start again. The roads, labour colonies and the machinery are bound to have a lasting impact on the forests of the MM Hills. Veerappan’s family may not be only ones mourning his death !!