Kidnapper of star haggles with Indian authorities

Veerappan has been charged in absentia with 120 murders

August 25, 2000
Web posted at: 8:41 a.m. HKT (0041 GMT)

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) -- Indian bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan has asked authorities to clarify their response to his conditions for freeing a film star he has abducted, officials said Thursday.

"Veerappan is satisfied with some of our responses and has sought clarifications regarding certain other responses," S.M. Krishna, chief minister of the southern Karnataka state, told a news conference in the state capital Bangalore.

"He has asked (government emissary) Gopal to facilitate a solution to the problems at the earliest." The chief minister said the bandit had however made no fresh demands.

Veerappan, who has been charged in absentia with 120 murders, kidnapped movie star Rajkumar on July 30 from a remote farm in southern Tamil Nadu state. Rajkumar, 72, is a veteran of 210 films and is a cult figure in neighboring Karnataka.

The outlaw has since made demands including for international arbitration in a long-standing river water sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and the release of 56 of his allies now in prison.

Rajkumar

The two states have agreed to some demands, including the release of the prisoners, but have said legal hurdles prevent agreement on others such as the river water dispute.

The two states last week sent their responses to the demands in 450 pages of documents carried by their emissary, R.R. Gopal, a Tamil magazine editor who enjoys the trust of the bandit. Officials have said Veerappan's key demands appear to be the release of the prisoners.

Krishna said Gopal had brought back from the bandit's jungle hideout a videotape in which the hostage Rajkumar appealed to the film industry in Karnataka to resume work.

The Karnataka film industry has been shut since July 31 in protest against the abduction.

Veerappan, who has roamed the jungles of southern India for years, has also been accused of slaughtering 2,000 elephants for their tusks and smuggling ivory and sandalwood worth millions of U.S. dollars.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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