The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Veerappan victim's parents recall son's sacrifice

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Veerappan victim's parents recall son's sacrifice

By Shakeel M. Rasheed

RAJAHMUNDRY, OCT. 19. "Veerappan would have been dead long ago if our son hadn't believed in the principles of ahimsa," said P.Anantha Rao and Jayalakshmi, parents of Pandillapalli Srinivas, the IFS officer, who was beheaded by Veerappan in 1991.

Living in a rundown house in Rajahmundry on a street named after their son, they reacted to the forest brigand's death rather stoically, saying "Veerappan had it coming, he dug his own grave."

Srinivas is credited with being the first official to turn the heat on Veerappan, before being lured and brutally killed by him in the Karnataka forest. Mr Rao and his wife were woken up on Monday night by a relative and informed of Veerapan's death. "I couldn't believe it at first. I thought it was a rumour.

He deserved the fate he met with finally, as he had destroyed so many families," said Jayalakshmi, holding the Kirti Chakra she had received at the Defence Investiture Ceremony at the Rashrapati Bhavan in 1992 from the former President, R.Venkataraman, in recognition of her son's gallant service posthumously.

Poignant memories

Sitting framed by the pictures of their son, who would have been 50 today, Mr Anantha Rao, who makes wooden switchboards, and Ms Jayalakshmi, hardly miss any detail of their son's short-lived career in their narration, from the time he passed out of the local Lutheran High School and graduated through the Arts College to join the IFS.

Not letting the pain that has furrowed deep into them to cloud their memory, they recalled how Srinivas had started off as an Assistant Conservator of Forests in Chamarajanagar taluk in whose jurisdiction lay Gopinatham, the native village of Veerappan. Apparently drawing on the real-life accounts of the forest life their son had shared with them, Mr Anantha Rao said: "Veerappan was a small-time poacher then, but later turned into a sandalwood smuggler in Chikmagalur division."

As Deputy Conservator of Forests in 1987, Srinivas built a wireless network in the forests, stepped up vigilance with watchtowers and created a forest complex to check smuggling. "The Karnataka Government realized the evil that Veerappan represented when he murdered four officers.

My son, who was undergoing training in the United States, was sent for and asked to head the joint State Task Force of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in 1990," he said.

Mr Anantha Rao said his son believed in non-violence and had hoped to reform Veerappan by influencing local villagers into `non-cooperation' with his prey. "And on the fateful evening of November 9, 1991, when Veerappan sent word through his brother, Arjun, that he would surrender at a farmhouse, my son took his word for that," he said. And what had come out of that meeting with Veerappan was Srinivas' beheaded body.

Still nagged by the feeling that Srinivas could probably have lived "if his fellow officers had exercised some caution that evening," Anantha Rao said "Our son was a karmayogi.

He had faith in the goodness of human beings. His sacrifice will not go in vain. Good will ultimately prevail over evil."

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