Govts open pursestrings to help Bandit play Robin Hood

Govts open pursestrings to help Bandit play Robin Hood
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

BANGALORE/CHENNAI, AUGUST 25: The Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments put their heads together to go down on bended knee and announced a Rs 10-crore ``corpus fund'' to meet Veerappan's demand that ``victims'' of the Special Task Force be compensated.

Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna said that the official emissary R R Gopal will go back to Veerappan again on Monday and, hopefully, this third visit will lead to the release of Rajkumar and the three others held hostage for 27 days now.

Krishna said the bandit had complained that the two governments were not serious about paying compensation. ``Anyway, successive governments have agreed to pay compensation as per the NHRC recommendations,'' he said, adding that besides the Rs 10-crore corpus, the state is ready to meet any additional financial burden if warranted.

The Rs 10 crore is pittance compared to what the government may have to shell out if all other demands are to be met. In the second cassette sent through Gopal yesterday, Veerappan is said to have put a figure on his earlier demand for compensation to the victims of Cauvery riots.

According to highly placed sources, the bandit has asked for Rs 10 lakh to be paid to rape victims and the next of kin of those killed, and Rs 5 lakh to those rendered homeless or injured.

Veerappan has said that the compensation be distributed immediately to all those who had filed applications before the Inter-State Commission, formed by the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments following a Supreme Court directive, the source said.

There are at least 10,000 applications pending before the commission and if compensation has to be paid to all of them as per Veerappan's demands, the State would end coughing up more than Rs 200 crore. Veerappan, the sources added, is not willing to accept the fact that compensation has been paid to the victims as per court directives and further compensation will have to be paid on the basis of the commission's findings.

Earlier, the two CMs discussed the ``clarifications'' sought by Veerappan and decided that Gopal would go back with their responses. Each decided to set aside Rs 5 crore as compensation to the villagers affected by the Special Task Force (STF) action in 1992-93.

The money will be distributed as and when the Justice Sadashiva Committee set up by National Human Rights Commission in 1999 to probe the alleged excesses of the STF submits its recommendations, Karunanidhi said in Chennai.

As for the 121 (70 of them are already on conditional bail) prisoners in Mysore jail, he said steps have been taken to ensure their release. The bail applications will be heard on August 28.

Karunanidhi said the necessary permission for their release has been sought from the Centre and the delay so far was due to legal formalities. This, he said, would be explained to Veerappan by Gopal.

Krishna also defended his government's decision to drop TADA cases against those in Mysore jail and suspected to be supporters of Veerappan. Citing a ``precedent,'' he said the government withdrew cases against farmers involved in the Bagur-Naville tunnel agitation to demand compensation for crop losses. On according Tamil the status of second language in Karnataka, the Chief Minister remarked: ``Veerappan has lately realised that there is a Constitution.''