'IAS officer feared rise of a junior Veerappan'

Coimbatore: Days after the notorious forest brigand Veerappan was shot dead by the Special Task Force in October 2004, a senior IAS officer in Tamil Nadu had reportedly expressed fears about the likelihood of a successor emerging, according to partial extracts of a US Cable released by WikiLeaks.

“The terrain is ideally suited for a Veerappan Junior,” the then State Public Secretary Pitchandi was quoted as having told US Consul General in Chennai Richard D Haynes, in the cable sent by the latter in November 2004.

One of the primary reasons for Pitchandi’s fear was that the Dharmapuri district, from where Veerappan had largely operated, was economically backward.

“Its (the district’s) poverty and remoteness make it an ideal breeding ground for discontent,” the cable said.

The US diplomat felt that with the elimination of Veerappan the way was clear for the State Government to integrate Tamil Nadu’s 'Wild West' into the rest of the State.

“While Veerappan’s death removed the main security threat in Dharmapuri, the conditions that spawned his power remain. Its poverty, isolation, and lack of infrastructure leave the area ripe for further security threats. The current contenders for power lack either knowledge of the local terrain or local political support, giving the Government of Tamil Nadu time to bring this comparatively lawless region back into its reach,” Haynes said.

The cable also reflected on the attempts by Naxalites from the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to get a toehold in Dharmapuri.

“Dharmapuri’s lack of infrastructure has allowed the People’s War (a Naxal outfit) to gain a small foothold in the region. However, according to Jeyaranjan (director, Institute of Development Alternatives), the People’s War is not indigenous to Dharmapuri and does not have Veerappan’s knowledge of the forests, limiting their activities to the plains,” Haynes said.

Interestingly, while the PMK had rallied behind Veerappan’s widow Muthulakshmi, one of its senior leaders had felt that it would not make sense to harp on the fact that Veerappan was a Vanniyar, a community which constituted the PMK’s vote bank. The PMK MP AK Moorthy, who was also a Union Minister of State for Railways, had told Haynes that Veerappan belonged to a very small sub-caste within the Vanniyar community. This, the diplomat believed, further dampened the political response to the brigand’s death.