No More In Cocoon

He did crimes for an exorbitant price and in return, the costliest encounter of the country was planned and executed for him. This is the final episode of India's most wanted and feared bandit who eluded in the woods for years. Let's see who was successful this time?

The Fall of Banditry; Image Source: Wikipedia Commons

The only time Veerappan has been behind bars was in 1986. However, he escaped, killing four policemen and an unarmed forest official in their sleep — BBC News 2004

In defiance of the state governments of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, as well as the paramilitary forces of Indian border security, Veerappan was a domestic terrorist, smuggler and a poacher who maintained a small band of armed people committing all the outlawry. He maintained his evasion of arrest for almost two decades, killing more than 120 people, poaching over 2,000 elephants, and smuggling millions of dollars of ivory and sandalwood.

Evidently, the fact that he poached his first elephant at age 14 and murdered at the age of 17 indicates that he grew up within such an environment. He initially engaged in dacoity to fulfill his financial requirements but was later involved in smuggling sandalwood and ivory, killings, abductions, and even demanded the release of militants from jail once. Throughout the tribal areas, his terror grew and people would flock to him to greet the notorious bandit who had become a hero in the forest. Whenever he felt the tribe members or anyone who he felt were opposed to his illegal trade, he would simply kill them.

As time went on, Veerappan gradually made headlines in mainstream media and gained attention in the lens of the nation. His illegal activities almost evolved into something big enough for officials to get a hold of them.

This is when a special joint task force (STF) was instituted by the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to recover Veerappan from his cocoon. Nobody knew what he ate, where he hid in the lush green forests or where his camps were located. As Veerappan was very familiar with forest terrain, finding him wasn't an easy task. As a result, officials decided to pull him out of the forest and set up an attack on Veerappan. The whole plan took months of preparation, weeks of executions and the actual operation was supposed to be completed within 45 minutes. As of now, the task force was ready to stage the plan.

A large part of Veerappan's band was dead, and his band was reduced to only a few men. As a matter of fact, Veerappan was making arrangements to leave the forest so he could seek medical treatment for his eyes in South Arcot.

Officers sought the help of the local tribesmen to infiltrate the enemy camp and by impersonating village masons, hawkers or other local residents of the villages where Veerappan was supposedly living. A traitor was planted in Veerappan's contact who informed the officers that Veerappan was planning to get out of the forest for an eye operation to hospital, in Salem.

After the Veerappan was unearthed from the forests and all this information was collected, it was time for the final operation to begin. An ambulance van had been arranged by undercover policemen of the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force to take Veerappan to hospital. Interestingly he had not noticed that the ambulance's name was spelt "Selam" rather than 'Salem,' which was a mistake and might have led to suspicions. Thus, Veerappan, unaware of the operation, was successfully escorted out of the forest in a police van that he knew nothing about.

Meanwhile, Papirappati village in the Dharmapuri District was swarmed with an army of police officers and was hiding in trucks or in the bushes. Veerappan was now in the plotted area and everything was set up as planned. Following this, the ambulance driver, who was also a policeman, fled.

In their initial warning, Veerappan and his men were asked to surrender; however, they failed to comply and fired at police officers. As expected, a whole team of task force members were stationed to fight Veerappan at the first sign of trouble and the battle took no time at all.

In the following few minutes of an extensive firefight, the forces fired 338 rounds at an ambulance, hitting Veerapann only three times but the nation's most infamous crime figure was finally captured. In the final report, three bullet wounds, on his forehead, hip, and ribs were discovered. Additionally, the police also recovered a 12 bore Remington pump-action gun, two AK-47s, a self-loading rifle, two hand grenades, and cash worth ₹3.5 lakhs from his camps.

The famous banditry in South India ended that night, the police file on Koose Muniswamy Veerappan was officially closed, and Operation Cocoon was successful. Historically, this operation was the most expensive encounter in India's history, costing approximately one billion rupees.