Why some leaders against YSR family: A lead story

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YSR: A doctor with a finger on the public pulse

YSR Reddy with principal secretary S Subramanyam on board the ill-fated helicopter on Wednesday. (TOI)

HYDERABAD: A doctor by training, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, or YSR as he was popularly known, was known for his strong administrative skills and whose second stint as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh this year broke a 53-year-old jinx for the Congress party.

This May, he became the first Congress chief minister since the state was formed in 1956 to complete a full five-year term and retain power in elections. The only other chief minister who achieved the fate was NT Rama Rao of Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

In Pics: YSR Reddy (1949-2009) 

One of YSR's main achievements was subduing the ultra-left Naxalite insurgency in the state that had one time gripped 21 of its 23 districts. In the process, the People's War Group (PWG), once the dominant Maoist group in India, was crushed beyond recognition.

When he took over as chief minister for the first time on May 14, 2004 from N Chandrababu Naidu of TDP, it was a dream came true for YSR. The leader from the badlands of Rayalaseema had come up the hard way in his public life spanning three decades and emerged as one of the strongest leaders the Congress has produced in the state.

He has always been a winner. Elected to the state assembly for the fifth time, YSR is also a four-time Lok Sabha member and holds the record of never losing an election.

More than once he proved why he was more popular among masses with his fingers on the public pulse.

Popular as 'people's leader' among his followers, YSR tasted success despite facing a hostile poll campaign from both the TDP-led four party Grand Alliance and the Praja Rajyam Party of actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.

YSR also emerged as one of the few leaders in the country to retain power beating the anti-incumbency factor. What has made his performance more creditable is the fact that he made no big promises and instead highlighted his performance versus the "poor credibility record" of his main rival N Chandrababu Naidu of TDP.

Banking on his performance and the numerous welfare schemes his government launched during the last five years, YSR retained power despite a three-cornered contest. The man who ran the Congress campaign on his shoulders emerged victorious in the face of hectic electioneering by top stars of the tinsel world in favour of TDP and Praja Rajyam.

Born to a Christian middle class family at Pulivendula, a small town in Kadapa district, on July 8, 1949, YSR made a modest beginning. Eldest of the five sons of YS Raja Reddy, a dynamic local leader in his heydays, he evinced interests in politics while studying at MR Medical College, Gulbarga, Karnataka.

After completing his MBBS, YSR served as medical officer at the Jammalamadugu Mission Hospital briefly. In 1973, he established a 70-bed charitable hospital.

He entered active politics in 1978 and was elected to the state assembly from Pulivendula. He served as state minister from 1980 to 1983 and retained the assembly seat in 1983 even when NTR swept to power with a historic victory.

Sensing a potential leader in him, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appointed YSR president of the state unit of Congress when he was only 34.

In 1989, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kadapa and held the seat till 1999, when he shifted again to state politics. From 1998 to 2000, he again served as president of the state Congress.

Though the party lost the 1999 state elections, YSR emerged as the strongest leader of the party and became the leader of opposition.

The year 2003 was a turning point in his political career as he undertook a 64-day padyatra, or walkathon, across the state. Covering 1,500 km under the scorching sun, he received petitions from people about their problems, mainly relating to agriculture and unemployment.

It was this campaign and a strong anti-incumbency wave against Chandrababu Naidu's government which catapulted YSR to power.

His experiences during the padyatra helped him shape his policies after assuming office as he gave free electricity to farmers, waived their loans, introduced several welfare schemes like pension for the aged, widows and handicapped, housing for poor, Rs2-a-kg rice, Rajiv Arogyasri or community health insurance scheme and a massive programme to build irrigation projects.

Thanks to these initiatives, the Congress won 156 of Andhra Pradesh's 294 seats and bagged 33 of its 42 Lok Sabha seats this time.

In a message on Independence Day on Aug 15, Reddy said: "The state has witnessed tremendous growth in the past five years when compared to the growth that took place since independence. Our people are a happier lot and are embracing a bright future without any fears."

some dissident leaders against YSR before and after they are louder to the Congress High command. YSR Death brought them back into active Politics

Death of Robin hood: a photgraphers eye

It was my birthday and I drank royal challenge whiskey and chatted with T at the Cosmo village. The music was loungy and she smelt nice, of soap and lavender. I leant forward about to say something witty when Aashi called and told me that Veerapan, the poacher bandit cop killing LTTE sympathizer who had eluded arrest for more than 20 years, who had killed over a hundred people and many more elephants, had been " shot dead " near Dharmapuri, a few hours away from Bangalore and close to the dense forests of the western ghats, the ether from where Veerapan he had handled his operations.

A few years previously I had been driving through Bandipur National Park and we had passed by another jeep driven by Krupakar and Senani, two wildlife photographers, who I was to meet in later years. The next morning, they were kidnapped by Veerapan and endured some weeks with him in the forest. Later another photographer friend told me about Veerapan and how he met him by accident, how he had taken his picture in the forest and I found myself wanting to meet him. I imagined him a romantic figure in wild settings, the smells of the forest in his nostrils, crouched in the bushes animal like, towering trees dripping foliage, dew everywhere, mist, elephants, just their wet black backs and heads visible through the leaves.

I decided that I would shoot the aftermath of his death. I asked T if she would like to come. It was 1 in the morning so she conferred with her parents on the phone. I took her home, she dressed suitably conservative and we headed out with some reporter acquaintances down deserted highways lined by dried up trees, towards the town. She was young, upper middle class and was leaving to New York to do a course in filmmaking, an unusual girl, who said wise things sometimes, I felt.

What memories, what quiet moments, what experiences with elephants and early misty mornings and immense beauties would have been with Koose Muniswamy Veerapan, forever lost with his death. Would he have taken them for granted? What horrors, rages and cold-blooded murders. A criminal, rebel, ruthless murderer, thief, loving husband, all of the above.

We reached Dharmapuri in the early morning. Swarms of mosquitoes gave the air texture when I ran my hand through it. I had a press ID with me and we walked past police barricades toward the morgue. Reporters were everywhere. The doors of the morgue were closed. The autopsy was being carried out.

Kannada daily photographers milled about, another day at the office and had gotten there early enough to shoot close ups of Veerapan’s head, bullet hole included. The constabulary read through the local papers, which included large pictures of his head. I went to the morgue. It was locked.

I went around the back to a window and opened it. A blood stained mortuary block. Men standing in corners with AK47 rifles. A man videotaping the autopsy. A policeman rushed forward and slammed the window shut.

We decided to go and look at the vehicle in which Veerapan had been shot. We drove to the site. The bullet-riddled van was covered with a large tarpaulin. Villagers walked by and a short distance away was parked the lorry in which the STF men had lain in wait. Bullets seemed to have riddled Veerapan’s vehicle from the quantity of glass lying about. A few bullets had hit the police lorry, from what seemed to be the wrong direction.

We returned to the mortuary. The cops had a tough time keeping cameramen at bay. Everyone wanted close up pictures of the bodies. I felt myself gagging at the odor that came from the morgue. Putrefaction, meat, blood and dettol. No one seemed to notice and jostled each other, fighting for a vantage point to take photos. The mortuary workers were excited. They posed, looking serious, clean and combed, by the bodies. Tomorrow they would be forgotten and would lapse back into the anonymity of small town India. Today they stood next to Veerapan, Bandit king, elephant killer.

I stood next to Veerapan. In a few days he would disappear from the news. In a few years his story would be lost, embellished and exaggerated about. His death would sink into local legend and eventually his bullet-riddled body would be worth just as much.The thief, murderer, poacher and brigand was being haggled over.

Veerapan didn’t look like himself. The photographs I had seen earlier showed a man, with piercing eyes and wild hair. Veerapan had been shot at close range in the head. I found myself not wanting to shoot his face stitched up, eyeball missing, hair carefully combed by the spruced up mortuary workers.

He police brass arrived in force, smiling, shaking hands and doing their hair with small pink and yellow plastic combs. They spoke to cameramen and many officers leaned in closer towards other officers so that they could be included in photographs. Constables pushed, shoved and strutted and commented on photographers “Look at that fellow, what stupid photos is he taking?” and shouted instructions. “You next, no.… YOU!”. A Karnataka STF member discussed with his friend whether, given their efforts they would also get plots of land as had been promised by the government of Tamil Nadu to the Tamil Nadu STF members who had killed Veerapan. The odour of putrefaction and dettol filled the air and I wondered if what was happening said more about our systems and our souls than just about Veerapan the dead dacoit.

I took some pictures of photographers taking pictures. I felt claustrophobic. I went to the rear or the morgue and forced opened a window. Through a doorway I could see the photographers shoot the neatly lined up corpses of Veerapan and his men. I was away, 20 feet apart from the chaos. A corpse lay on the floor, in the mortuary behind where the bodies had been lined up.

The corpse looked asleep. Who was he? He seemed to have bullet injuries from where I stood. An informer, an accident victim? A woman brought her dead baby in from the hospital. Reporters thinking she was related to Veerapan rushed at her cameras clicking and then rushed away. Another anonymous little corpse in an anonymous government morgue. The mother looked forlorn and resigned.

We left the morgue. Outside the gates hundreds of people stood on balconies and milled about waiting for a glimpse of the body. Veerapan wife was to come there soon. She had alleged that she had been tortured by the STF during their hunt for Veerapan. No one disbelieved her. It must have been hard for her to be married to Veerapan, I thought. She had joined him in the forest but for the most part they had remained separate. He had allegedly killed his own daughter, an infant, to prevent her crying and warning the STF of his presence. She spoke of her time in the forest fondly though, as I recall in a documentary, and she spoke of elephants and how she would watch them, with Koose Muniswamy Veerapan by her side.

I went to the nearby press conference under a tent. Outside the Tamil Nadu STF celebrated. They hoisted their leader on their shoulders and cheered. He fell off. I missed the photo as I was changing film. Men bonded and shouted and laughed on the TN side.The Karnataka STF made an entrance. They had been fierce competition and fights between the two state task forces when it came to apprehending Veerapan. The Karnataka STF looked forlorn and resigned. They had lost their baby too.

The press conference began. There was no room. T disappeared into the crowd. There was a lot of praise for the Tamil Nadu STF from the Tamil Nadu STF. The press guffawed a lot. No one seemed to believe that it was a genuine "encounter".

We got into the car, and slowly negotiated the packed roads. T lit up a cigarette. The crowds pressed up against the car, saw this and went crazy. They banged on the car and pressed their faces against the windows for a closer look. A woman smoking. I ran over a foot or two and drove home, back to Bangalore, past the same dried up trees, desolate fields and plastic packets blowing in the wind.

I felt removed from the masses of humanity who spoke different languages, stared at women smoking and crossed the road without looking in any direction. I was tired. I felt like I was watching myself drive from far away as we headed towards the city and its traffic jams. As with experiences that involve death and violence I wondered if one day I would be exaggerated, lied and embellished about. Or maybe like the baby in the government hospital forgotten. Would my mother be forlorn and resigned? Would morticians comb by hair with the same care? Why would they? Thus lost in thought, I nearly ran into a road divider.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant, I drank tea, lots of it and was awake again. T looked out of the window a lot and I sang songs in terrible Kannada to Bocelli playing on the car stereo and we drove past forgettable fields and similar towns under an overcast sky. She laughed and clapped her hands when I sang. I reached Bangalore and its traffic. I understood her need to leave India. She would not return I felt. Europe though, not America, I imagined. I stopped the car near her house, and wished her off. She smelt of cigarette smoke, lavender and sweat. She exited the car, walked down a lane and disappeared into the ether.

How Veerappan walked into the STF's trap

DHARMAPURI: Veerappan, India's most wanted and most elusive brigand who murdered with impunity, was finally shot dead in his jungle hideout by elite commandos using some of the very tactics he employed for well over two decades to build a vast criminal empire.

Using deception, undercover agents and a meticulously laid out network of informants, Tamil Nadu's Special Task Force (STF) commandos - set up only to nab him - trapped the 50-something Munuswamy Veerappan Gounder, made famous by his trademark handlebar moustache, into taking a van ride in a forested region where policemen ambushed and gunned him down Monday night.

Operation Cocoon to track and eliminate the forest bandit succeeded because of extra-ordinary intelligence said K Vijaykumar, chief of the combined Special Task Force (STF) on Tuesday.

In a remarkable success story of perseverance, the STF - made up of commandos toughened by living in the inhospitable jungles of southern India straddling the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border - planted a mole in Veerappan's gang who drove the van that led him to his death.

A visibly triumphant STF chief K. Vijay Kumar, a former police chief of Chennai, told a crowded news conference here that Veerappan, blamed for some 120 murders, was killed after a fierce 20-minute gun battle near Papparapatti village of Dharmapuri district, some 300 km from state capital Chennai.

STF personnel in civilian clothes, hiding along both sides of a jungle track halted the van, supposedly an ambulance, at 10.50 p.m. after being tipped off about his movements and asked him to surrender, Kumar said. But Veerappan opened fire, sparking a firefight.

In no time, Veerappan, who was not wearing his usual battle fatigues and had trimmed his moustache apparently to hide his identity, lay dead along with three of his hardcore associates, Sethukuli Govindan, Chandra Gowda and Govindan. Veerappan took bullets in the head and an eye.

Asked where Veerappan was heading to, Vijaykumar said probably the sandalwood smuggler, who had an eye problem, was going for some treatment.

The STF seized two AK-47 rifles, a 12 bore shotgun and a 7.62 self-loading rifle besides cash and three grenades from the dead men.

The killing sparked off celebrations in STF camps in the area, with its personnel bursting firecrackers and lighting colourful flares, brightening the forest sky well before dawn.

The STF chief, who had tonsured his head as a vow for the killing of Veerappan, said pressure was put on the brigand to come out of the jungle to an area where the STF had an advantage.

"This is a Diwali gift for the people of Tamil Nadu and the families of Veerappan's victims," said an STF officer. Both Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha and DMK chief M. Karunanidhi hailed his death as did former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani.

The deaths mark the end of a man who at one time virtually ruled a sprawling 6,000-sq km thickly forested region where he killed men in cold blood, murdered elephants for their ivory and cut sandalwood trees for smuggling, building a vast criminal empire that had no parallel.

Kumar, dressed in STF battle fatigues and flanked by dozens of his colleagues, including men who spied on Veerappan, admitted that the man they had killed was no ordinary criminal. 

Bodies of Veerappan and his men at Dharampuri hospital on Tuesday. (AFP photo)

"He was a worthy foe, he was not easy to get," Kumar said, speaking alternatively in English and Tamil in this small town.

The STF chief revealed that the security forces of both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had together stepped up pressure on Veerappan in recent months, and the Tamil Nadu STF had been waiting for him to emerge from his hideout.

"We watched him for several days," he said. He said some of his men infiltrated villages in the region by taking up jobs as hawkers, waiters at small restaurants and bus conductors.

"We penetrated even (Tamil Nadu's) jails," he said. "All this gave us good results."

Kumar gave equal credit to Karnataka's security forces for the killing of Veerappan, who began life as a small time criminal but ended up building a gang of his own and earning the reputation of one who would spare none who came in his way.

Although his first murder was reportedly committed in 1969, his killing spree began in right earnest in July 1987 when he abducted and killed a forest officer of Tamil Nadu. Two years later he murdered five men of a rival gang.

Veerappan's terror reign took firm roots when he killed and mutilated three Tamil Nadu forest personnel in August 1989 and shot dead a Tamil Nadu sub-inspector and a head constable the next January.

In May 1990, the STF was set up to catch him, but the man always remained one step ahead of his pursuers. In the process, Veerappan, who came from a poor family, cocked a snook at the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, making a mockery of the thousands of men deployed to track him down.

Veerappan had trimmed his handlebar moustache. (AFP photo)

This soon turned into the country's largest manhunt for any criminal. Veerappan commanded a price Rs.3 crore (Rs.30 million) on his head.

Veerappan's heartless methods were in full display when he lured R. Srinivas, a senior forest official who he blamed for his sister's death, into his lair and personally beheaded him. This was in November 1990.

Then in August 1992, to avenge the death of four of his gang members, he trapped STF Superintendent of Police Hari Krishna, tied him with grenades and blew him up along with five other policemen.

In 1993, the central government stepped in, deploying the Border Security Force (BSF) to assist the STF. That did not bring the desired results although the BSF managed to kill some of his associates.

In recent years, Veerappan moved closer to Tamil extremists in Tamil Nadu known to be sympathetic to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas, becoming a larger than life figure. 

Mind game to gundown veerappna: Vilan movie SP plans his wife to go back to beera

"It was our turn to deceive Veerappan"

By G. Satyamurty and V.S. Palaniappan

— Photo: K. Ananthan

COIMBATORE, OCT. 20. "It was a psychological operation. Our low-profile during the past 10 months, lackadaisical appearance and apparent ineptitude lulled Veerappan into complacency," the Commandant of the Special Task Force, Additional Director-General of Police K. Vijay Kumar, said today.

"It was the escalation of the level of complacency that made him enter the plains" knowing fully well that "he would be virtually a fish out of water."

In an interview The Hindu at the Sathyamangalam STF camp, about 90 km from here, Mr. Vijay Kumar recounted the factors that contributed to the downfall of the elusive brigand on Monday night.

"We deliberately kept a low profile. It was a conscious decision," he said. Another important decision was "not to be a bull in a china shop. There would be only specific arrests and specific surgical action. We ensured that the protracted disappointment and frustration never led to any distraction among the rank and file of the force. In the last 15 years, we had been deceived by an overcautious Veerappan and it was our turn to deceive and lure him to the trap."

Informants activated

After taking over as the STF chief last December, Mr. Vijay Kumar tried to revive "the half-dormant assets" (informants). By March-end, substantial intelligence was available regarding Veerappan's movements. The input revealed that he was "quite comfortable" in the M.M. Hills and its surroundings, especially around Nallur that was near his native place, Gopinatham. "He had very loyal people in that region, who would even lay down their lives for him."

While it was decided to "push him into thin forests in the east" (the Pennagaram and Yemanur forests), another plan to "wean away" his lieutenant, Chandre Gowda, using his affection towards his ailing parents was abandoned by May-June due to certain reasons. The eastern jungles were made a free ground for Veerappan to move about and he was allowed to build his contacts. But, by then "we had dumped or inundated our reinforcements on all sides, preventing his movement in other directions. To deceive him, we had even conducted a couple of raids and patrols in pockets where he was hiding and returned with empty hands, just to give an impression that the STF was still not able to trace his whereabouts."

"By then we came to know that Veerappan was suffering from some eye ailment. But then he was hesitant to come to the plains for treatment. To make it uncomfortable for him, we peppered the entire Nallur region — from Nallur to the Cauvery, for a stretch of 20 to 25 km — with 30 to 40 groups of STF personnel, who would be present all the time."

Combing operations

Mr. Vijay Kumar said this forced the bandit to seek a different hideout. "We were holding the enemy's ground. I would consider this as the most important strategy that contributed to his fall."

Later, the STF, which was present in the Pennagaram forests, even up to Natrampalayam was directed to go north. Thus, a virtually "free zone" was created for him "without making him suspicious." Instead of regular combing operations, once in a way a sort of "bush bashing" was undertaken so that he would believe that "vacating the zone by the STF was not deliberate."

Mr. Vijay Kumar admitted that the STF's knowledge of "internal squabbles" in the gang (with Veerappan losing trust in Sethukuzhi Govindan because of an ego clash over leadership and also in Sethumani for his inconsistency in staying in the jungles) helped. Velladurai, an STF Sub-Inspector, infiltrated the gang, posing as a sympathiser of an armed revolution, and inveigled the gang to the ambulance. He succeeded in assuring all help, including manpower, logistics and even asylum, if required to the bandits. Veerappan was favourably disposed towards such armed revolutionaries and had the backing of like-minded persons in his community, especially in the Dharmapuri, Salem and Cuddalore belt.

Mr. Vijay Kumar said the help to Veerappan from villagers had come down of late. "But we never used the medical camps that we organised and the various welfare measures for the tribal people to tap intelligence. We never expected anything in return but it helped in considerably reducing his support base."