Bandit was keen on family reunion: Wife

All that Veerappan wanted to do in his old age was to reunite with his family and spend his last days with his two children, the bandit’s widow Muthulakshmi has said.

‘‘He was good to us (she and her two daughters). Though I lived with him only for three years after our marriage, he was never violent with me. After that, I saw him only infrequently. The last time I met him was three years ago. He wanted to leave the jungles and come and live with us. When I told him of the problems I was facing and the loss of my freedom, he asked me to be patient. Since his health was failing, he wanted to spend the remaining days of his life with us and his brother’s son,’’ she said in an interview to BBC Tamil Service on Thursday.

Asked how the rest of society perceived her, Muthulakshmi said people in general had been good to her. Since the police tended to harass anybody associated with her, even those who had genuinely wanted to help her had been afraid.

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Claiming that she and her family had never defied the STF, Muthulakshmi said her bank account was frozen and she was now in absolute penury.

Meanwhile, reports from Mettur said that Muthulakshmi would be filing a case against the police for the death of her husband.