The joint Special Task Forces of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka adopted “third degree methods to extract minimum information” from villagers while trying to nab Veerappan, a panel set up to investigate if atrocities had been committed says.Even so, the two-member Sadashiva Committee headed by former Karnataka High Court judge A J Sadashiva, has been unable to identify the guilty officers because of the victims’ inability to identify their tormentors.But the panel points out: “Though we have noted that there is no acceptable evidence to pinpoint the identity of individual STF personnel who had committed the misdeeds in these allegations, there is absolutely no doubt about the suffering and distress undergone by the victims of this misdeed.”The committee submitted its report to the National Human Rights Commission on December 2, 2003 when STF personnel were still hunting for Veerappan across the vast forest terrain of the Western Ghats. The NHRC set up the Sadashiva panel in June 1999.But, even a year after Veerappan was killed in an ambush in Tamil Nadu on October 18, 2004 the report has not been released. However, The Indian Express has managed to get a copy of the 411-page report.An extract from the report reads: “Since Veerappan has successfully remained at large and is also active in the interior forest beyond the reach of the STF for a very long time in spite of the extensive and intensive action taken by the STF, and since the STF have not been getting the required co-operation of the locals to find out the hideouts of Veerappan and his gang, we cannot rule out the possibility of the STF getting frustrated and becoming very aggressive due to the pressure of public opinion, besides the directions from their higher-ups to intensify their efforts, resulting in their arresting and detaining several people from the area for prolonged interrogation, and adopting third degree methods to extract maximum information.”
