Chennai: Former STF chief Vijay Kumar, who hunted down forest brigand Veerappan, had unknowingly stopped a well-planned STF move of planting a hardened criminal from Chennai as a mole to infiltrate the fugitive's gang in 2003 when he was Chennai city police commissioner.
The Chennai city crime branch team had picked up the criminal 100 metres away from the place where he was supposed to join the STF team. Described as One-eyed Jack by Vijay Kumar in his book, Veerappan chasing the brigand, the mole did not make it to the brigand's team.
“The STF dealings with Jack were conducted in such secrecy that the Chennai police had been unaware of the operation. I was then Chennai commissioner and rue the fact that I was not kept in the loop. Otherwise I would have ensured the
mission’s success”, the author says in his book.
“He was a member of Tamil Nadu Liberation Army from Perambalur. Before we could pick him up, Chennai police team had intercepted him. We then tried a man from Triplicane and later one Hidayatullah and his men from Kanyakumari,” recalls a retired STF officer.
It was the then STF chief R. Nataraj who envisaged the possibility of setting up a thief to catch a thief. “Though we could not send the TNLA man, we managed to send Hidayatullah and his men inside by which we could get the location of Veerappan and his associates,” Nataraj, a retired DGP and MLA, told this newspaper.
Though Hidayatullah could not complete the mission of eliminating Veerappan and the brigand had sent them off after 21 days once he started doubting their intentions, it was useful for STF in some way. “Nataraj’s attempt to infiltrate Veerappan’s camp may appear to have failed at first glance, but it had yielded precious information to the STF. The STF learnt that Veerappan desperately needed treatment for his eyes.”
