OCTOBER 1-15, 1997 | BANDIT VEERAPPAN - CATCH ME A COLOSSUS

What gives rise to people like Veerappan who openly flout the law? Is it the result of a policy which increasingly alienates people from what should be theirs and encourages them to support outlaws? Is something rotten in the State machinery?

- RAJAT BANERJI

CALL HIM what you will—poacher, smuggler, murderer— Veerappan is a phenomenon that has vexed two state governments (Kerala and Karnataka) for close to a decade. But how does a ‘brigand’ like Veerappan evade “the strong arm of the law”? Is there a ghost in the law-and-order machinery that trips the keepers of the law just as they are close to nabbing him? What sustains him and others like him? Are Veerappans, as it were, born from the alienation of the people from what is theirs?

An elephant poacher-turned sandalwood smuggler, Veerappan has used his intimate knowledge of the territory and his influence and terror among the locals to avoid capture.