Subject: More on Veerappan

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#1. Hostages safe in Veerappan's custody

All the nine Karnataka forest officials held hostages by the
forest brigand Veerappan in the deep Western Ghat jungles
are "safe and in sound health," according to R Raja Gopal,
the journalist emissary, sent by Chief Minister M
Karunanidhi to negotiate their release.

Gopal, editor of the popular Tamil weekly Nakkeeran,
returned to Chennai on Wednesday morning after his arduous
assignment which kept him in rain-drenched forests for over
two days, first locating the fugitive through his emissaries
and thereafter conducting the delicate exercise of negotiating
their release.

After emerging from a meeting with Karunanidhi at the State
Secretariat in the evening, Gopal told this correspondent that
the Chief Minister had viewed the videotape of his
negotiations with Veerappan lasting a full hour and
three-quarters with keen interest. He told Gopal he would
discuss Veerappan's demands with his Karnataka counterpart
J H Patel to get the hostages released.

Gopal said he would address the media on Thursday morning
to provide more details and photographs showing his meeting
with Veerappan and possibly the nine hostages held by the
brigand, who is wanted by both the Tamil Nadu and the
Karnataka governments for various crimes spanning over
two decades, such as sandalwood smuggling and elephant
poaching, not to forget the murder of almost a hundred police
and forest personnel and innocent villagers in the vast jungle
terrain he lorded over across the two States.

The fugitive kidnapped the nine Karnataka forest officials on
July 12 and sent an audio tape through their driver,
addressing Karnataka Forest Minister with a list of his
demands for the release of the hostages. "I want justice. I
want my life to be protected and that is why I am forced to
take these men hostages," he said in the tape, while chiding
the Karnataka government for keeping mum over his offer
made last year to surrender, provided he was guaranteed total
amnesty. The Tamil Nadu government and "about 70 per cent
of the public in Tamil Nadu" were willing to grant him
amnesty, so why not Karnataka, he had asked.