Storm the 145;Veerappan Triangle146;

No drama enacted in contemporary history has had more acts to it than the one involving Veerappan. Enviable, too, is the ease with the musta...

No drama enacted in contemporary history has had more acts to it than the one involving Veerappan. Enviable, too, is the ease with the mustachioed bandit has directed this drama over a period of more than a decade and a half and with a score that has left at least 50-plus people dead, dozens injured, hundreds of elephants poached and thousands of sandalwood trees felled. Yet, despite his crimes, Veerappan can still make away with a former minister as a hostage for yet another ransom in 2002.

How does he do it? Simple. The answer to the Veerappan riddle does not lie in the period when the drama of kidnap is on 8212; with all the paraphernalia of emissaries, messages in audio and video cassettes, and so on. This is merely a time when this fleeting shadow decides to come out of his dark hole, have a sun bath under the full glare of publicity, and then retire.

The question is where does Veerappan retire to? What do the Special Task Forces STF do during this period ? Why is it that all the IPS officers who achieve a degree of success during such 8216;true8217; operation periods develop cold feet and retreat? And why do state governments cooperate with them by transferring them to other posts?

Answer this and the riddle is cracked. It is precisely here that the state 8212; meaning the Centre and the governments of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala 8212; has failed. By reacting to Veerappan only as and when he attacks or carries out his kidnapping, the state and its officers has merely treated the symptom and not the disease.

Possibly no territory south of Vindhyas qualifies to be a centrally administered area more than the forest tracts encompassing Satyamangalam and the neighbouring regions of Tamil Nadu, Kollegal, Chamrajnagar and bordering regions of Karnataka and Wyanad in Kerala. Be it in terms of demographics 8212; a mixed population of tribals and nomads speaking different dialects mixed in varying degrees of Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam, or independent of all the three languages 8212; and a terrain 8212; vast stretches of which constitute arguably the only remaining tracts of pristine forests in this part of India. Things have got further complicated by the fact that this is the region where cross-border criminal activity is at its most manifest. The mafia here deal in smuggling, poaching and quarrying.

Incidentally, Veerappan has kept in touch with the white-collared men who preside over the destiny of the region. Neither the kidnapped Nagappa nor MLA Raju Gowda of Hanur are strangers to Veerappan and vice versa. Similar is the relationship between the Nachi Muthu, as well as other Tamil groups, and Veerappan on the TN side of the borders.

A legacy of the reorganisation of states, the 8216;Veerappan Triangle8217;, is a pocket of a few Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam settlers and a comparatively huge population of tribals and nomads, all in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their lives are dictated by the events of mainstream politics in the three states. Therefore, whether it is a linguistic riot or border trouble, their lives get cruelly disrupted. And Veerappan thrives on this.

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Though it is not a situation that lends itself easily to a solution, the following steps are absolutely necessary, if the region is to be properly administered and protected from the likes of Veerappan. One, the area should be declared as a protected, centrally administered green/wildlife territory. Two, all the funds from tribal welfare, general administration, as well as forest conservation and protection, must become the corpus pool for establishing this green territory. Three, all quarry operations in the region must be banned. Four, bounty hunters must be set on the trail of Veerappan. Five, non-conventional warfare, must continue. This five-point strategy can overcome the much-touted impediments to Veerappan operations 8212; terrain, lack of co-operation between the states and the lack of proper intelligence.

It is fear and lack of options among the local communities that has allowed Veerappan to perpetrate, for so long, his nefarious rule in the region.