The Hunt for Veerappan (2023) s01e02 Episode Script

1
['Tiger' Ashok] After Srinivas' death,
you know,
every police officer had in mind
if any one sight
of Veerappan or his gang member,
we have to shoot him.
[Sunaad] He had taken on
the actual might of the police
in such an open and brazen manner.
In part, it was astonishing, shocking,
thrilling, and also very, very unnerving.
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil] When he was young,
he would catch monitor lizards by hand.
They live inside tree hollows.
When he spotted them go into a hollow,
he'd bravely put his hand inside.
Sometimes these big monitor lizards,
they would bite and rip his flesh apart.
But he'd still not let go
and grab on to them.
Similarly,
the police made efforts
to catch Veerappan at any cost.
The governments of both states said,
"No matter what happens,
no matter how much it costs,
we must not spare Veerappan,
we must catch him dead or alive."
That was indeed a mistake.
[Sunaad in English]
When an entire army of men is after you,
it is absolute human nature to flee.
But, in this case,
he, as a rule, turned back,
looked his pursuers in the eye,
and said,
"Catch me if you can."
[gripping music playing]
[animals chittering]
-[vehicles passing]
-[horns honking]
['Tiger' Ashok] Chief Minister was
begging at that time.
Home Minister was begging.
"You do whatever. You tell how many crores
you want, we will give you."
See, the entire government was backing us,
supporting us.
So many officers
were drawn from Karnataka.
Cream of police officers
of Karnataka state.
At that time,
I saw one very active personality.
Very active like mercury.
Shakeel Ahmed.
No loose talks,
no unnecessary fun jokes and all.
Very cut and straight fellow.
Then I met the Chief of Police,
Mr. Harikrishna.
He was such a daring officer, I have seen.
And very short-tempered.
He said, "Ashok,
we will take
Veerappan's dead body procession
in front of Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore."
He was so confident.
We three became one group.
We were like brothers there.
We were collecting intelligence,
we were doing the interrogation,
and we were doing the combing, all-in-all.
We were very confident.
The government also declared
twenty lakhs ransom
on the head of Veerappan.
WANTED
REWARD OF 20 LAKHS
Beautiful posters were made.
And fixed in the public places.
So everybody was watching.
Twenty lakhs means, those days,
in 1991, it was a very big amount.
[indistinct chatter]
One right hand of Veerappan was caught.
Gurunath Achari.
He was a hardcore gang member
and he used to take care of the weapons.
The killing of Gurunath is the first catch
only with public information.
So public also got little relief
and confidence that police
can overpower Veerappan.
It is, I tell you, one of the bravest work
done by Shakeel Ahmed.
The STF became very strong.
And everybody knew
any moment we would have
finished Veerappan.
How overconfident we were.
Any action from police, he will retaliate.
[Sunaad] Nobody ever imagined
that he would come right into Ramapura
with a band of almost 20 men.
One villager told me,
"We heard this sound,
-in the absolute stillness of the night."
-[gun cocks]
"A succession
of 'rat-tat-tat' kind of sound."
[in Kannada] "Why would someone turn on
the motor pump
in their field at this time?"
[gunshots echoing]
[in English] The police station
was under siege.
[gunshots continue]
['Tiger' Ashok] All bloodshed.
And we saw it was just like a battlefield.
For one death of Gurunath,
he killed almost seven people.
See, he took the revenge
of attacking the police station
to show he is still more powerful
than the police.
Our blood was boiling, actually.
[melancholic music playing]
[Sunaad] Veerappan thought nothing
about families being ruined
emotionally and otherwise forever.
He was always justifying his actions.
And he was absolutely
not remorseful at all
for all the brutal acts
of murder that he committed.
-[distant birds chirping and squawking]
-[animals chittering]
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
Fifteen or twenty days
after the Ramapura station attack,
my second baby was born.
We were constantly on the move,
from one place to another.
You think hiding is easy.
We had to walk
40 to 50 kilometers every day.
No one from the team can speak aloud.
I will have to come close
and whisper into their ears.
Or I [hisses] can hiss
or click my fingers
to get another member's attention.
[distant birds squawking]
We moved near Nallur.
It was safe for us to stay there.
My husband knew who would betray him
and whom he could trust.
[animal calling]
[Sunaad in English] There was a lot
of tension in the air in the village.
In the Nallur area,
all hell had broken loose.
[in Tamil] Police entered Nallur
and were shooting fire
into people's houses.
[Interviewer in English]
You visited Nallur?
Yeah, many times.
[Interviewer] How were the people there?
Not cooperating with the police.
Absolutely adamant people
and not cooperating, not opening mouth.
[Interviewer] So Nallur was also
burned down, was it?
The huts were burned down
By the By the police or
Yeah, something went on, I think
I don't remember much now.
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
A lot of his relatives lived there.
Two or three families
knew our spot in the forest.
[Interviewer] Did Veerappan know
who it was? If it was the police
Shakeel Ahmed.
My husband said,
"I'm okay if he catches me."
"Instead he's catching hold of
innocent people who belong in that area
and tormenting them."
"How can I stay quiet
after witnessing this?"
"I'm the only one
who can punish those officers."
Their injustice provoked him to the point
of making murder seem normal.
[suspenseful music playing]
['Tiger' Ashok in English] In any crime,
we make the reconstruction of the crime.
How the crime has happened.
For example, in this incident,
the selection of the ambush place
speaks about
the intelligence of Veerappan.
He always selects the hairpin bend.
In a hairpin bend what happens?
The vehicles get slow.
[vehicle brakes squealing]
We should not praise him, but outstanding.
Outstanding, I tell you.
Harikrishna drove the car.
Shakeel was sleeping in the backseat.
When they approached
the hairpin bend, you know,
Veerappan has put a load of rocks,
stones on the road.
So when the car took a U-turn,
suddenly Harikrishna saw the heap.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Veerappan in Tamil] All the stones
were neatly arranged.
To not raise any doubts,
we made it look like a temple.
-When I saw the white car come, Nephew
-[gunshot echoes]
I knew this was
the last day for all of them.
I shot them one by one.
Right here, an accurate head shot.
That's it.
That was the end of their chapter.
['Tiger' Ashok in English] Veerappan shot.
And the bullet exit wound
was through his throat.
[gunshot echoes]
Car full of blood.
Shakeel was between the constables.
His brain, everything splashed outside.
I just sat in a chair
and I was totally blank.
Just imagine my position at that time.
INSPECTOR ASHOK KUMAR AND SHAKEEL
My close friends were killed,
so brutally and badly.
And I lost all my confidence.
The STF, you just imagine,
in the absence of very big hands
like Harikrishna and Shakeel Ahmed,
how big damage happened to STF.
We thought it is an impossible task.
-[horns honking]
-[distant siren blaring]
[female newsreader] Protests continue
on the streets of Mysore city
demanding action
against sandalwood smuggler Veerappan
for the brutal killing of STF personnel
including officers
Harikrishna and Shakeel Ahmed.
Speaking to reporters, Karnataka
Chief Minister Veerappa Moily said,
the brigand is suspected to have crossed
the state border into Tamil Nadu.
Chief Minister Jayalalitha
of Tamil Nadu has promised
to intensify combing in the jungles
bordering the two states.
[distant birds chirping and hooting]
[Sunaad] Veerappan would commit
a crime on the Karnataka side
and very conveniently
slip away into Tamil Nadu
until the heat died down here.
So the Karnataka police were desperate
to have the Tamil Nadu police
also get into action in a serious manner.
There was this great sense
of resilience in the force.
Every time a policeman died,
there was another
who held his hand up and said,
"I'm going to come take his role
and do my bit."
There was an officer
in the Tamil Nadu police
named Gopalakrishnan.
This man looked like
he was destined to finish Veerappan.
He formed a unit
and, quite strangely,
named it Jungle Patrol.
Six-footer, very well-built.
And a muscular person like Rambo.
Our 'Rambo' Gopalakrishnan,
he was living in the forest physically,
day and night.
He was coming closer
and closer to Veerappan's gang
and he was
a force to the Tamil Nadu police.
He did wonders from his side.
[Interviewer] Rambo also has
a track record
-of being a little violent with people.
-Yeah.
See, in the beginning what happened,
the police, you know, because of hardship,
we were not very diplomatic.
[in Tamil] That was a bad era for
the people, not Veerappan. [clicks tongue]
The police couldn't do anything to him.
It was the people who suffered.
Gopalakrishnan tied up and punched
a cattle herder to his death
in front of that man's wife.
Every village, when attacked,
the outcome was Veerappan's retaliation.
Times were bad and it was
when this reached Veerappan
that a banner was put up
in Kolathur market.
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
He put one big banner
in a white cloth in red letters.
Tempting words to Rambo Gopalakrishnan.
"You don't have the guts
to come and face me."
"If you are really born to your parents,
come and face me."
It was a big news
and everybody was laughing
and making fun
of Gopalakrishnan and his team.
Rambo should have been
a little cool-minded
and should have thought
why he has put the banner.
Rambo Gopalakrishnan brought two vehicles
and full police force came.
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
What the team did was
We weren't there.
We were at a different place
around 15 kilometers away.
We heard a loud bang,
and the rumbling sound
didn't stop for ten minutes.
It sounded like the hill was collapsing.
Like an earthquake.
When we heard the sound,
I could not understand what it was,
but he immediately said, "It's done."
[police officer in English]
Suddenly, there was a big noise
of explosion.
There was a lot of mud
going up in the air and coming down.
I mean, completely dark.
I could not view anything in front of me.
I couldn't understand what happened.
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
Police had machine guns with stands
that could fire ammunition belts.
My husband considered
all of this and decided that,
"The only way I can take this team on
is by planting a bomb."
[chuckling] That was his brain at work.
[suspenseful music playing]
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
When we approached the spot,
it was such a horrible scene, I tell you.
I've never seen
such an incident in my life.
The bus got twisted and became two pieces.
Pieces of human body
were hanging on the bushes and all.
Intestines, skull, helmets,
twisted weapons.
Twenty-two people massacred.
[Ashok Kumar] I found two constables
carrying Gopalakrishnan.
He said, "Ashok"
[in Tamil] "My head is hurt,
and my mouth"
[in English] He couldn't speak,
and his legs
There was a lot of blood oozing out.
And his knees Both the knees were broken.
He was thrown
to some few meters up, and he fell down,
sustained severe injuries and fractures.
Otherwise he would have been killed.
Veerappan dug 13 huge pits.
And buried about
more than 25 kgs of explosives.
[Sunaad] It was a biblical massacre.
[unsettling music playing]
[male newsreader] Veerappan's latest
outrage on the 9th of April
was the blowing up
of a bus on the Special Task Force
near Palar,
in Mysore district of Karnataka.
Twenty-two people were killed
including 15 police informers.
Veerappan is now
an insatiable hunter of human beings.
[eagle screeching]
[Sunaad] It had been three years
since the formation of the STF,
and they had got nowhere near
either nabbing Veerappan
or shooting him dead.
They had found it
a superhuman task to do so.
But the manner in which 22 people
were blown to bits
galvanized both the governments.
The Chief Ministers met.
And they came to a decision
to form a Joint Special Task Force.
[distant birds chirping and squawking]
[foreboding music playing]
A lot of myths
began to grow around
the phenomenon of Veerappan.
There were crazy, wild,
exaggerated accounts of the man.
I remember somebody telling me
that he was endowed with magical powers.
That it is a certain God of the jungle
that is helping him do all this.
Details about him were very sketchy.
[foreboding music continues]
[photo journalist in Tamil] At that time,
there was only one
black-and-white photo of him,
with his signature mustache, sharp nose,
but nobody knew the truth.
How many people
are with him, who are they,
what is their life like in the forest?
None of this was known.
As a journalist, I will be recognized
only if I take steps
that others would not take.
He'd say, "These police officers
are making it seem
like I'm the only criminal."
"And I'm the only murderer
on a killing spree."
"They're creating
a false reputation of me."
"Hence, while I'm still alive,
I want the truth to reach the public."
He was firm on this.
[Sivasubramanian]
Around 4:00 in the evening,
a tribal who was in touch
with Veerappan's gang,
he came walking barefoot
and asked, "What's your name?"
I said, "My name is Sivasubramanian
and I'm a reporter."
He said, "Brother has asked you to come."
The freedom of press permits a journalist
to establish contact with a criminal.
I saw four men
in khaki uniform approaching us.
First was Veerappan
with a gun slinging on his shoulder.
Dark green uniform,
smiling face, good personality.
He greets me and asks what time I came in.
And nowhere do I get
any sign that he is a cruel person.
Only one thing was running in my mind,
"I need to photograph him."
"Lighting conditions are good."
"Can I take a few photos?"
I requested him.
He responded with a gesture.
"You want a photo, huh?"
"Arjunan? Reporter wants
to take a photograph it seems."
"Are you all ready?"
Veerappan's name
was widespread, not his appearance.
"If you let them click your pictures now,
we will never be able to go anywhere."
"Don't do it."
I tried to stop him and even cried,
but he didn't listen.
"Ah, can we take one now?" he said.
And he was getting ready,
putting his chain outside to be visible.
I knew I had achieved something
nobody else could and I was elated.
[camera shutter clicks]
[camera shutter clicks]
[camera shutter clicks]
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
So many photographs.
Holding the rifle
and sitting for an ambush.
[camera shutter clicks]
Walking with the camouflage uniform
with the weapons.
[camera shutter clicks]
We got all his team members' photographs,
that is the first time.
That is the biggest mistake he committed.
Then we got the family tree
of each person.
Relatives, relatives' friends.
We come to know who all
were helping him supply the ration,
supply the information,
and giving strength to the gang.
The intelligence started working.
We have seen his cruelty.
Very closely we have seen.
Such cruelty of act,
we have not heard or seen in our lifetime.
We became mercenaries at that time.
Totally mercenaries.
That will not be understood
by any court of law
or human rights or anybody.
Only the people
who have worked in the operation
will understand
the gravity of these things.
And at that time,
one powerful police officer
rose from the Karnataka side,
Shankar Mahadev Bidari.
He was one of the most efficient
and daredevil officers.
Not only brave,
but also a very tactful man.
[dramatic music playing]
Shankar Mahadev Bidari
saw the photographs of all the culprits.
And intelligence started going very deep.
[Sunaad] Arrests by the hundreds
were made.
Anybody and everybody
who was a suspect were rounded up
in that building called "the workshop."
[police officer in Kannada]
It was not a workshop
where one repaired motorcycles,
cycles or buses.
It was a workshop that was designed
specifically to torture people.
The whole of Tamil Nadu
got scared of this "workshop."
Such was the situation created by Bidari.
He was considered like the judge
of Supreme Court at MM Hills.
Whatever he said was the final word.
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
Until a certain point,
getting rice was easy.
When Shankar Bidari took charge
to catch my husband,
a villager buying even a kilo of rice
was caught and questioned.
[Puttamallaachar] The workshop
was like a second hell.
Our ancestors
used to tell us stories about hell.
That we would be thrown
in boiling oil, or thrown on fire, alive.
We have seen
all of these tortures at MM Hills.
It was a big hall.
Around 15, 20 or 50 people
would arrive by bus.
They divided the workshop into two spaces.
One side for the people they liked, and
the other for the people they disliked.
At that time,
Bidari opened his "third eye."
The "third eye" is called the destroyer.
Made the inmates drink urine.
Made a woman sit naked in front of a man.
This was Shankar Bidari's torture.
-[unsettling music playing]
-[flies buzzing]
[Sunaad in English] The macabre dance
of death never seemed to end.
A police convoy was attacked
by Veerappan and his men.
[in Kannada] When we reached that spot,
blood was still flowing on the road.
Shankar Bidari came, looked around
and surveyed the whole place.
He called me, "Puttu, come here."
He was so shrewd that he knew the names
of people at the workshop by heart.
He sat on the hood of the car
and wrote some names down.
He told me, "Take the jeep
and get those eight people."
"Take each of them
and make them stand in front of a tree."
[grim music playing]
All this showed our weakness,
very obviously.
Seeing this, I felt so ashamed
and extremely hurt
that I thought that us police folks
were behaving like bandits.
[police officer in English]
One lesson that I learnt
during my entire stay in the STF was this.
Don't enrage him.
Contain him.
I have handled, in my service career,
terrorists in J&K,
Naxalites in central India,
insurgents in northeastern India.
But Veerappan's methodology,
his modus operandi was totally different.
Veerappan evolved a strategy
on the basis of his experience.
He did not study
much about guerrilla warfare,
but he was a born guerrilla.
[animal bellowing]
[K Arkesh] Veerappan's ambush
are typical of hunting an animal.
When a hunter hunts an elephant,
he knows where the elephant would come.
He laid ambush in such a way
that the person was sure to come there,
and he was sure to get killed.
This kind of perfection he had achieved,
otherwise Veerappan
would not have survived for so long.
So, a huge number of people
going to the forest and getting killed.
I thought, "This is not the way."
Perhaps things
would have been done better.
It's a guerrilla warfare
kind of a situation, I gathered,
and it required anti-guerrilla tactics.
It should be
an intelligence-based operation
by efficient commandos
who could live in the forest
and, at appropriate time,
they should strike.
[police officer in Tamil]
Inside the jungle, Veerappan was strong.
Since he practically grew up there,
the jungle was his home.
Just like how we know
our way around our house.
We know the way
to the bathroom even in the dark.
Similarly, the jungle became his home.
So he slowly took more men in his gang,
and turned it into a small mobile village.
I imagined myself in Veerappan's shoes
to work out
what route he could have taken.
So I decided to go on the route.
I visited all those villages,
and set up informants there.
I never told the villagers
I was looking for Veerappan.
I only told them, "Let me know
if you see any new people in the forest."
Along the way, the locals
had seen movements in some areas,
but they didn't know who it was.
"We saw 20 smugglers pass by."
So I decided that Veerappan's gang
was somewhere around that area.
Only he had such a big gang.
More than 100 men and women.
[Muthulakshmi] Navas wanted
to catch Veerappan
at any cost and earn a name for himself
like Gopalakrishnan.
The vigor with which
he was looking for Veerappan,
everyone went to Veerappan
and told him about Navas.
[Anburaj] He called
the whole gang together.
He said to them,
"My life will be difficult now."
"People with me will be in danger."
"Knowing this, if you
choose to stay, you're welcome."
"Let's go west."
[Muthulakshmi] We reached Minchuguli Boli
and stayed there.
[distant birds and animals calling]
There was a small valley and a stream
with water flowing through it.
It was a dense forest
with a variety of big trees.
The trees were so dense,
you could hardly see through them.
Even under light,
it wasn't easy to see through them.
So my husband decided we could stay there.
And then one day,
"We have no money."
"We need money to buy rations."
And he left.
I was worried that I had to
be without him for a few days.
[Mohan Navas] As we kept moving,
we got a piece of information.
"In Minchuguli,
there is a lot of human fecal matter."
The villagers
I had sent in came and told me,
"It must be sandal smugglers."
We received a lot of intelligence
on sandal smugglers then. [clicks tongue]
"It must be sandal smugglers."
"No, sir," he said.
"Sandal smugglers only eat rice."
"The fecal matter
of rice eaters is usually yellow."
"But this was black."
"These are millet eaters."
So it had to be Veerappan's gang.
I was sure of that.
Minchuguli, it was a vast area.
It is in the middle
of two to three mountains.
He was confident
that police wouldn't come this far.
He wandered around freely, thinking,
"Who would come into this forest?"
He made a mistake.
He made huts.
It took us a day to assemble the teams.
Karnataka, the BSF,
and Tamil Nadu planned a joint operation.
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
It was early morning.
Hundred people made one single line,
and slowly
we started moving to that place.
We could see two ladies
were grinding some ragi or something.
And four people were playing chess.
It was such a safe place.
[Anburaj in Tamil]
One of the sentry points was weak.
A boy with the rifle on his shoulder.
He came down swearing.
"Motherfuckers dare to mess with me?"
He was walking
towards the camp swearing like this.
Another sentry had asked him
what was going on.
"The police tyrants are approaching us."
He was arrogantly asking,
"What could they do to us?"
The other one couldn't believe his ears.
"Yes, they are descending from the top."
When they looked,
150 to 200 policemen were approaching.
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
Then all of a sudden, they were alerted.
[distant animal calls]
They started whistling.
A type of whistling and sounds of animals.
And they started running.
This was noticed by the BSF people
who were in a little elevated place.
So they opened fire.
[guns firing]
[in Tamil] When they fired,
the sound could be felt in our chests.
I couldn't talk or breathe.
I didn't have strength
in my body to get up and walk.
I had nowhere to run.
I knew they'd shoot at me if I ran.
I just held on to the stalk of bamboo
and waited there, kneeling.
[Anburaj] The police entered
through one side and started firing.
Hearing the bullet sounds,
the gang started fleeing.
Everyone scattered.
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
We were shocked to see the place.
Everything systematically he has done.
See, everything was stocked.
Including sweets.
Jangiri, jalebi
All food stuffs in good bottles
they were kept, very neatly.
His wife was using shampoo.
Fair & Lovely,
so many tubes we found. [chuckles]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Muthulakshmi in Tamil]
The police had closed in from both sides.
They came and asked me,
"Are you Muthulakshmi?"
"You know I'm Muthulakshmi."
They tied a black cloth
tightly over my eyes.
[suspenseful music continues]
When Veerappan
had left the gang in Minchuguli,
he had around 157 members with him.
Comprising of men, women and children.
A total of 157 members.
When Veerappan returned,
he couldn't find his people.
He ran everywhere
to gather the lost gang back.
He was not able to find anyone.
The police caught everyone
and shot them one by one.
Men, women, and even children
were killed without any mercy.
It had caused
a great deal of trauma to him.
['Tiger' Ashok in English]
Veerappan's gang all scattered
in the forest helter-skelter,
and we caught them.
We caught them, and there were encounters.
Some were arrested, some were killed.
KOTEYUR MANI
I could kill 13 of his gang members.
If I had continued in the STF,
I would have killed Veerappan.
For Harikrishna and Shakeel Ahmed,
that was my revenge.
The entire gang of Veerappan,
when it is reduced to six members,
Veerappan comes to know about his end.
Definite end.
The entire credit first goes
to Shankar Mahadev Bidari.
Excellent Commander-in-Chief.
[Puttamallaachar in Kannada] They said,
"We have caught hold of Muthulakshmi."
She was beautiful.
If she participated in a beauty pageant,
she would win
the first prize without doubt.
On any woman, you would find
gold jewelry weighing 300, 400 grams.
But Muthulakshmi had jewelry
that weighed about 750 grams.
[in Tamil] All of them came
to get a peek at me.
I didn't realize they were here
to see me because I was Veerappan's wife.
I was only thinking about
what they'd do to me.
[in Kannada] Just within ten minutes
of taking her to the camp, Bidari came.
He came in a bulletproof car.
[in Tamil] Shankar Bidari came with
a copy of India Today magazine.
"Do you know who this is?" he asked me.
It had my photo.
"I know." "Who is it?"
"That's me," I said.
"You are famous enough
to be on India Today?" he asked me.
I didn't answer.
After the police caught me,
my husband became very ferocious.
"I am a man and now I am alone.
I can do whatever I want."
He got fearless.
Well, he was already fearless.
But he felt like there was
nothing limiting him anymore.
[birds calling]
[Sivasubramanian] The tenderness I saw
in Veerappan's face
the first time was completely gone.
His face had gotten dark.
A reflection of some misery in his heart.
He asked me about one thing,
"Instead of just taking pictures,
can you record me on video
and play it like a movie?"
I said, "Yes, it's possible.
We can also do it."
-[intriguing music playing]
-[static crackling]
When Veerappan's interviews
were telecasted,
everyone in Tamil Nadu
was glued to their TV sets.
[Sunaad in English]
As the years rolled by,
Veerappan started giving
multiple interviews.
And as you could imagine,
they became a spectacular success.
[Veerappan in Tamil] When an issue happens
in a village, it stays within the village.
There is a separate law
for the politicians.
And a separate law for the public.
An old lady remarked,
"Oh, our savior and God has come."
I saw them reacting this way to Veerappan.
[Sunaad in English] It was amazing,
and also very, very strange
that he was displaying
a kind of an inherent arrogance
that he possessed.
And seemingly, at the snap of a finger,
taking the names
of top politicians and bureaucrats.
-[dramatic music playing]
-[distant siren blaring]
And almost telling them
how politics should be run.
So the show went on.