Veerappan - The legendary bandit no more!Written by Chris N. Fernando
Known by different nomenclatures like bandit king, elephant poacher, sandalwood smuggler and much recent Robinhood of India, Veerappanthe forest brigand was finally killed in an encounter this month. This man popular for his handlebar moustache, hacked more than 120 people to death during his reign of terror spanning over four decades, felled thousands of sandalwood trees worth and sandalwood worth $22 million, and poached about 2,000 elephants for more than 88,000 pounds of ivory worth $2.6 million and what not! It took about 20 years and more than Rs 1000 crores to finally kill Veerappan, making this manhunt, Indias biggest and most expensive.In beginning there was a brigand The year was 1952, date18th January. Kuse Muniswamy Veerappan Gounder was born in Gopinatham Village in Karnataka state (India). He was lovingly called Veerappan, which means he who is brave. He started off with committing crimes at a very young age. In fact Veerappan began his career in crime as an ivory poacher and is reputed to have killed his first elephant when he was just 14. He committed his first murder at age of 17too small an age when boys his age would be falling in love. He used to operate from dense Sathyamangalam forests and used to reportedly distribute money earned from smuggling and kidnappings to villages around forests. Doing this earned him title of Robinhood of India and local people would worship him as their king. But then as they say, every coin has two sides Veerappan too had a scar face hidden behind his generous image. It is said that Veerappan used to boast about how he killed his victims, cut them into pieces and fed flesh to fishes in ponds around forest. Veerappan was notorious for his guerilla tactics, kidnappings, beheadings of his victims and killing more than 120 people of which majority were police officers and forest department officials. His fame to crime increased day-by-day, forcing two of biggest states in IndiaTamil Nadu and Karnataka to launch a massive manhunt and also form a Special Task Force (STF) for capturing Veerappan, dead or alive. Despite this, he could never be capturedin fact, only time Veerappan was put in jail was in 1986; but he soon escaped killing four policemen and paying a bribe of $2,000. The STF formed by both states had more than 1,500 officers and personnel. As if that was not enough, even Border Security Force (BSF) was assigned a task to capture brigand; though they failed miserably in it. So, how was he hunted down? Capturing Veerappan was not an easy task. He had informants in villages around forest to tip him off about any police forces entering forest to hunt him down. Reports say that his jungle hamlets were often booby-trapped and heavily mined, to keep trespassers away. Moreover, his people were in and around 6,000 sq km jungle and so it proved to be a hell of a task. And he did all this with old hunting rifles, while police forces had all latest gadgets, including AK-47 assault rifles and night vision binoculars. At one point for time, 2,000 police officers were searching for Veerappan around forests. Finally their efforts paid off on 18th October 2004 at Dharmapuri village in Tamil Nadu (India). Veerappan was killed in an encounter that had been planned over months. Police officials say that all through these years, Veerappans troupe was getting weaker and weaker and he was on a lookout to hire more youngsters into his group. The first step of their plan was deemed successful, when police officials intercepted a letter sent by Veerappan to his brother, who was then lodged in jail. The letter said that Veerappan wanted his brother to arrange for a few youngsters to join his team through his contacts with extremists. Thats when police decided to send their people instead into Veerappans group to record his daily activities. However, police did not want to send their team members, because Veerappan could get suspicious. Therefore they called for volunteersand they got volunteers in form of a few villagers and two college students. These volunteers armed with Veerappans letter, went into forest to meet brigand claiming that his brother sent them. Fortunately, Veerappan didnt have any suspicions and team of volunteers was accepted into his group little knowing that these volunteers would be cause of his death in coming days.
| | Don't Forget About Your Old Ezine Articles!Written by Timothy Ward
It's over. You've written your ezine article, sent it out to some ezine publishers, posted it to some article banks and announcement groups, and have even had it published in a few ezines. Pretty good, huh! Now it's time to forget about that article and move on to next one. Or is it?Actually, if you forget about your article now you may be missing out on some of most important benefits that can be gained from writing ezine articles. Listed below are 5 ways to get more benefits from your already published ezine articles. 1. Submit URLs of Published Article to Search Engines Many times people will like your article enough to post it on their website. Once you find URL where your article is published try submitting it to some search engines. The webmaster probably won't mind but a email asking for their permission can't hurt. Additionally, if your article is published in an ezine that is archived on a website you can submit URL of issue of ezine that your article appeared in. If it's a well-designed site search engines may except submission and your article may start appearing in search results all over Net. I recommend using free search engine submission sites like: http://www.addme.com or http://www.submitexpress.com 2. Submit Article Bank URLs to Search Engines When you post your articles to article banks like Ultimateprofits.com or Ezadsuccess.com, your articles are posted on their own webpage. Submitting URL for this page to search engines can bring added readers to your writing. I tried this tip a while back and truthfully I forgot that I even did it. Recently, I was surprised to find that a few of article bank URLs that I had submitted were actually in some of major search engines! 3. Post Your Articles on Your Own Website By posting your articles to your own website you are giving all visitors to your site a chance to read over and benefit from your writings. Having well-written, informative articles, that you've personally written, on your site can add to your credibility-which can increase sign-ups and sales.
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