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Veerappan goes kidnapping again

Sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, kidnapped a four-member team, headed by Tamil newsmagazine Netrikann editor A S Mani early today. The team had gone voluntarily to meet the brigand despite the Special Task Force not giving it permission.

Police sources said the forest brigand was holding them hostage in the Dhimbam forests near Bannari on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border.

Veerappan released Mani and sent with him a video cassette to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi containing his demands.

Veerappan has demanded Rs 800,000 and the release of one Krishnamurthy, chief of the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Group and a supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to let them go.

Special Task Force Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Das rushed to the spot to co-ordinate combing operations. Two teams from Karnataka were also combing the area, the sources said.

This is the third time Veerappan has kidnapped people in the last 11 months.

The Karnataka government plans to capture Veerappan "dead or alive and will not tolerate any more drama," said Minister of State for Home Roshan Baig, adding that the state was considering invoking the National Security Act against those who visited Veerappan without the government's permission.

The forest brigand had abducted 10 Karnataka forest personnel last July demanding, among other things, grant of general amnesty to him. When the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments rejected it, he demanded a ransom of Rs 50 million for the release of the hostages.

Editor of the Tamil newsmagazine Nakkeeran R R Gopal, acting as the Tamil Nadu government's emissary had secured the release of all the hostages last August.

But Veerappan struck again, kidnapping 21 people, including Dr Satyabrata Maiti, scientists at the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research, Bangalore, on October 9 from the Bandipur forests to press his various demands, including grant of general amnesty and transfer of cases pending in Karnataka to Tamil Nadu.

EARLIER REPORTS:
The Veerappan saga

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