Police in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu say they have shot dead one of India's most wanted men, the bandit known as Veerappan. Police say he was killed along with three associates in a jungle forest. Veerappan, a Tamil, was accused of more than 100 murders as well as kidnapping, smuggling and poaching and had been on the run for some 20 years. A post mortem is being conducted in the town of Dharmapuri, where a huge crowd gathered outside the hospital.
A tall, wiry man with a trademark handlebar moustache, Veerappan had been considered the country's most ruthless and daring bandit. Since 1993, Veerappan had offered to surrender to the police on three occasions, always demanding that he be given a blanket amnesty. But the authorities always insisted that he should first lay down his arms and surrender. There had been allegations that he had close links with some banned extremist Tamil nationalist groups as well as Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka. |