India's most wanted bandit -- accused of murdering police officers, slaughtering elephants and smuggling ivory and sandalwood -- has been killed in a jungle shootout with police after more than three decades on the run, authorities said.
Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, 60, was fatally shot in a gunbattle with a special police paramilitary task force just before midnight Monday, said K. Senthamaraikannan, a senior police officer in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
"Veerappan and three other associates were killed," the officer said. "We have recovered the bodies."
News of his death was greeted yesterday with relief.
"I congratulate each man and officer for this sterling achievement of scaling the very heights of a risky mission, in ridding our society of the murderous menace that has defied us all these years, spreading pillage, destruction and death," Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram, the state's elected head, said in a statement.
With his trademark handlebar mustache, lanky frame and camouflage clothes, the flamboyant outlaw had enjoyed a level of celebrity comparable to the screen idols of India's Bollywood movie industry.
Veerappan had been on the run since the late 1960s, when he fell in with ivory smugglers. His turf was dense jungle terrain straddling nearly 10,000 square km in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
He was accused of smuggling ivory from 2,000 slaughtered elephants and thousands of tons of sandalwood, which is used for oil, soap, handicrafts and furniture.
Veerappan had a 20 million rupee (US$410,000) bounty on his head and had escaped capture twice.
Peasants, in awe of his daring and dependent on his handouts, had helped him cover his tracks. Some politicians also were allegedly on his payroll, and police said he terrorized locals by stringing up the bodies of suspected police informants from trees.
On Monday, police cordoned off the village of Paparapatti, 300km southwest of Madras, after receiving a tip that the bandit was hiding there.
An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that an associate of Veerappan had surrendered about three hours before the gunbattle and led the police team to the hideout.
Police officer Vijay Kumar, who supervised the operation, said Veerappan and his comrades were twice offered a chance to surrender. "The response was not appropriate," Kumar told NDTV television news. "We threw stun grenades and opened fire."
He said one of the four men with Veerappan escaped.
"It is like the killing of a demon," said Raghvendra Rajkumar, son of Rajkumar, one of southern India's most popular movie stars who was kidnapped by Veerappan four years ago.
Efforts to capture Veerappan were stepped up after his gang in August 2000 seized the then-71-year-old matinee idol, holding him captive in the jungle.
Fans rioted at the news of the kidnapping and Rajkumar was set free after three months under circumstances that were never fully explained.
The gang later kidnapped a politician, who was killed.
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