Indian court blocks release of kidnapper's comrades

November 7, 2000
Web posted at: 2:40 PM HKT (0640 GMT)

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- India's highest court has blocked a move by two southern states to release comrades of a notorious forest bandit who has held a movie star captive for 100 days, the judge in the case said on Tuesday.

The governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu had won local court rulings to meet Koose Muniswamy Veerappan's key demand: the release of 56 of his comrades from prison and the dropping of charges against 70 others who are on conditional bail.

But the ruling on 51 of these convicts in Karnataka state had been challenged in the Supreme Court by the father of a police inspector who was killed in an encounter with Veerappan's gang in 1992. The other five are in jail in neighboring Tamil Nadu.

Ivory and sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, who is charged with 120 killings, is India's most wanted outlaw.

He abducted Kannada-language film icon Rajkumar from a remote farmhouse in Tamil Nadu state on July 30, sparking scattered rioting in Karnataka's capital, Bangalore.

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