The Hindu : Veerappan sends cassette

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 27, 2002

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Veerappan sends cassette

By Our Staff Reporter

The farmhouse at Kamagere, near Hanur from where the former Karnataka Minister, H. Nagappa, was abducted. (Right) Parimala Nagappa, recalling the harrowing events.

Bangalore Aug. 26. The Karnataka Chief Minister, S. M. Krishna, said today that he had expressed his desire to meet his Tamil Nadu counterpart, Jayalalithaa, in New Delhi on Tuesday to request her cooperation in the release of the former Karnataka Minister, H. Nagappa, from the forest brigand, Veerappan, who kidnapped him on Sunday night. The two Chief Ministers will be in the Capital for a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority to be chaired by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Speaking to presspersons after an all-party meeting here, Mr. Krishna said his office had contacted the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's Secretariat to arrange for a meeting between the two leaders.

Earlier, Mr. Krishna, who arrived from Belgaum with the Home Minister, Mallikarjuna Kharge, went to the Vidhana Soudha for a special Cabinet meeting on the issue.

R. Krishnakumar reports from Mysore:

Police said that Veerappan had sent a cassette with a set of demands in exchange for the safe return of Mr. Nagappa, who was abducted from his farmhouse at Kamagere. But the contents of the tape are not yet clear. The micro-cassette was handed over at a farmhouse in Kamagere from where it was delivered to Mr. Nagappa's wife, Parimala Nagappa, last night.

Though Ms. Nagappa was tight-lipped about the cassette, police sources confirmed its receipt. The cassette was handed over around midnight but could not be played in the absence of a dictaphone. Intelligence sources said that though it was too early to speculate on the contents of the cassette, the possibility of political demands such as the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu could not be ruled out. "However, these would only be to camouflage his major demands such as the release of Sivasubramaniam (Nakkeeran reporter) or Nedumaran (leader of the banned Tamilar Desiya Iyakkam)."

Personnel of the Special Task Force of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, met at M.M. Hills today to chalk out their next course of action. Sources said that 40 units of 20 personnel each of the STF, civil and law and order departments of police had been pressed into service. Earlier, the Chamarajanagar Superintendent of Police, Harishekaran, led the combing operations in the Gundal and Burude forest ranges which is close to the point where Veerappan and his men were last sighted with their hostage boarding a private bus "Udaya Ranga" on the Kollegal- Satyamangalam highway.

A large crowd, which gathered in front of Mr. Nagappa's house on Sunday, burnt a bus.

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