By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Oct 20 2004 (IPS)

India’s most notorious bandit and king elephant poacher, Koose Muniswamy Veerapan, might be history after he was shot dead by police on Monday. But conservationists still remain sceptical on whether the illegal ivory trade can be stemmed in the country, while a leading human rights group has called for an inquiry into his killing.

”It is a good thing that they got rid of him (Veerappan) but the fact is that the ivory trade is still functioning,” Vivek Menon, India’s best known elephant expert, told IPS in an interview.

Menon who is executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India said he expected that as long as there was a demand for ivory from rich countries like Japan, elephants would continue to be slaughtered for their precious dentition.

”Rather than hunt poachers like Veerappan it is important to get to the bottom of the trade in endangered species,” said Menon who has spent considerable time in the dense South Indian forests of Sathyamangalam, which was Veerappan’s stomping grounds..

Menon’s time in the Sathyamangalam forests was used to research his seminal work ‘Tusker – The Story of the Asian Elephant.’

”Traders in Asia profit handsomely from the glamour and lure of ivory. A poacher remains on the wrong end of the ladder and a pawn in the game,” said Mennon.

But Veerappan, 62, created for himself notoriety unmatched in the annals of crime in the region.

He reputedly killed 2,000 elephants in a career spanning 30 years and also gunned down with equal ease forest guards, policemen and everything else thrown at him by the governments of southern Karnataka and Tamil Nadu between which states the Sathyamangalam forests are sandwiched.

Of the 130 persons that Veerappan was accused of killing, the majority were men in uniform sent into the forests to capture or eliminate him and his trophies included T. Harikrishna, a police superintendent in the special task force (STF) created a decade ago for the express purpose of getting the dreaded forest brigand.

That Veerappan could have for so long evaded the STF, backed up at times by the para-military Border Security Force (BSF) and commando units of the crack National Security Guard (NSG), often in helicopters, seemed to bear testimony to the fact that he had superior jungle survival skills and the loyal support of local villagers.

According to the police, it was a tip-off that Veerappan would be passing by in an ambulance on his way to hospital to seek treatment for an eye ailment that finally allowed 100 STF officers to zero in on their target in Tamil Nadu’s remote Dharmapuri district.

How Veerappan ordered an ambulance from his hideout was never explained and there are many who do not buy the story released by the STF at a press conference at Dharmapuri on Monday. Rumours are rife that the ‘encounter’ in which the ambulance was riddled with bullets was stage-managed.

India’s leading human rights group, People’s Watch said the killing could have been avoided and has called for an inquiry into Veerappan’s killing.

Its head, Henry Tiphagne, asked in an interview with the ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’s’ Tamil Service: ”Why could the 100 armed police officers who surrounded Veerappan not have forced him to surrender or simply wounded him?”

Tamil Nadu police said the killing of Veerappan and three associates was the result of months of planning.

Veerappan had many times told journalists how he had bribed police and politicians, and had made clear he would give details if he was ever tried.

Tiphagne said, with Veerappan’s death, the allegations of his links to leading figures in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with regard to the illegal ivory and sandalwood trade, could not be examined.

For some time now Veerappan has been trying to negotiate his own surrender in return for his freedom and the chance to live the life of an ordinary farmer on two acres of land. But that obviously would not have been convenient for those who benefited from his days in the forests.

Apart from elephants, Veerappan allegedly felled hundred of sandalwood trees, which are used to make joss sticks or carved into jewellery boxes and figurines that permanently retain the heady perfume of the wood.

He has been accused of smuggling ivory worth 2.6 million U.S. dollars and sandalwood worth 22 million U.S. dollars.

Extraction of precious sandalwood oil is a destructive process that requires uprooting of the slow growing tree and Veerappan and his gang are believed to have felled hundreds of mature specimens.

Curiously, before he began the nationally televised press conference, K. Vijay Kumar, head of the STF told reporters that he would not answer any questions that would ”embarrass anyone.”

Kumar conceded that the Veerappan was ”worthy foe” and that ”it was not easy to get him.”

One reason for the difficulty in nabbing their quarry was that Veerappan shared his ill-gotten wealth with impoverished villagers who live on the fringes of the 6,000 square kilometer forest area that was his home, thus acquiring the image of a modern-day Robin Hood.

Veerappan not only lived off the land but actually thrived on it and even acquired an armoury of automatic rifles, radio sets and powerful binoculars purloined from his well-equipped, uniformed adversaries.

Despite the huge contingent of troops deployed to hunt him down, Veerappan would occasionally emerge form his hideout and walk off with some prominent figure as hostage.

In 2000, he kidnapped Rajkumar, a matinee idol in Karnataka’s cinema world and released him only after the state government paid up millions of dollars as ransom.

Two years later, again defying the STF, he kidnapped H. Nagappa, a prominent Karnataka politician and former state minister who was shot dead in a botched rescue attempt by the STF which actually mistook the hostage for the kidnapper and shot him dead instead

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has blamed laxity on the part of the Karnataka government and complicity on the part of her main political rival and predecessor in office, K. Karunanidhi.

”Right from the beginning he (Karunanidhi) he had immobilised the STF and there was not single encounter between the STF and Veerappan’s gang while he was chief minister,” Jayalithaa, an actress turned politician said.

An official statement from Jayalalithaa said: ”It is with great pride and fulfillment that I wish to announce to the people of Tamil Nadu that the notorious forest brigand, bandit, murderer and dacoit Veerappan, along with his entire gang has been shot dead by the STF on Oct. 18 in a daring and intrepid operation, bringing to conclusion the manhunt that has been on for nearly two decades.”

But Jayalalithaa has the reputation of being poacher in a different jungle and currently faces seven separate cases of fraud, misappropriation of public funds, unsavoury land dealings and income tax evasion on her vast wealth acquired through doubtful means.

In November 2003, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of cases filed against her in Tamil Nadu to Karnataka on the grounds that there was ”strong indication that the process of justice is being subverted” by a prosecution which appeared to be ”hand in glove with the accused (Jayalalithaa).”

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