Subject: More on Veerappan ----------------------------- #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.