Unified Command set up to nab Veerappan

Unified Command set up to nab Veerappan
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

CHENNAI, NOV 26: The Special Task Forces set up by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to capture outlaw Veerappan will be under the unified command of Tamil Nadu Inspector-General of Police V Balachandran and assisted by Karnataka Deputy Inspector-General Harshavardhan Raju.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the government and police officials of both States held here on Saturday to evolve a new joint strategy to nab the elusive bandit. Another outcome of the two-hour long meeting was a decision to provide an impetus to the operations with logistic support from the Centre.

Tamil Nadu's Home Secretary Santha Sheela Nair and Director General of Police R Rajagopalan met their Karnataka counterparts M P Prakash and C Dinakar respectively as a follow-up to their meeting with Union Home and Defence Ministry officials in New Delhi on Friday. The Karnataka officials arrived here this morning on their way back to Bangalore.

Coming out of the meeting, Dinakar said: ``In the light of our experience, we found it necessary to reorient our strategy and so we have evolved a new strategy.'' He told mediapersons that the Centre's help would be in the form of manpower, materials and logistics for use in due course.

``We sought commandos and sophisticated equipment,'' he said, but declined to specify the nature of the equipment. Asked if satellite imagery would be used to locate the outlaw, Rajagopalan said: ``All that is a matter of detail which can't be disclosed.''

``There will be a lot of back-up support to the STF command,'' Dinakar said, adding that the intelligence machinery was being activated.