Mob fury grips slain hostage's village

Thousands of angry supporters of former Karnataka minister Hannur Nagappa fought pitched battles with the police and prevented a state funeral being given to their leader, who was found dead in bandit, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan's forest hideout on Sunday.

Mob fury ruled Kamagere in Hanur, 135 km from here, as Nagappa's body was brought for burial after autopsy to his house, the place from where Veerappan kidnapped their leader on August 25 and held him captive for 106 days.

But, worse still was that no political leader of any hue was welcome at the funeral with the police turning back Federal Minister Ananth Kumar and Janata Dal (United) leaders, back to Kollegal, unable to provide security.

Other JD(U) leaders like C. Byre Gowda, M.P. Prakash and K.N. Nage Gowda, all former ministers, were roughed up by the mob and were not allowed to enter Kamagere.

"Unfortunately, we could not provide the state funeral because of the mobs," Subhash Bharani, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), said. It was not certain if cabinet minister M. Mahadev was able to even reach Kamagere, to represent the government at the funeral.

The ire of the slain leader's supporters was a continuation of Sunday night's violence in Kamagere, Kollegal and Chamarajanagar, where police fired several rounds in the air to curb arson and violence.

Elsewhere in the state, buses were set alight, vehicles were stoned and roads were blocked. A railway spokesman said train services in some parts of the state were also disrupted overnight.

In Bangalore, squads of special riot police had been deployed to prevent untoward incidents. The state government had banned all public meetings, protests and gatherings till Tuesday morning, a police spokesman said.

The body of Nagappa, a three-time legislator from the Hanur constituency, was found by the police at the spot identified by Veerappan in his sixth audio micro-cassette, with a bullet injury. Police officials, however, declined to say if the bullet was from an AK-47 or a .303 rifle.

India's most wanted bandit, accused of 120 killings, including that of police and forest officials, has pleaded in the tape that Nagappa was killed by the Tamil Nadu police who came with AK-47s on Thursday morning.

"For somebody who is known to gloat over the death of his victims, this is a rather strange statement from Veerappan. He is regretting the death of Nagappa whom he respectfully refers to as 'Periyare'. He is known for his hysterical laughter after killing his victim," a senior official, who did not want to be identified, said.

But, the government is not taking Veerappan's statements at face value. "There are layers and layers of aspects that we need to check out before coming to any conclusion,"the official added.

Karnataka's security advisor, T. Srinivasalu, has been rushed to Coimbatore to decide the strategy with Tamil Nadu's Special Task Force chief, Walter Dawaram, Chief Minister S.M. Krishna said soon after his arrival from Delhi yesterday afternoon.

Asked if there would be a political fall out by Nagappa's death, Krishna said: "There is bound to be a political fall out. But, that we can handle. The law and order situation has to be monitored constantly."

The politics in the death of Nagappa is crucial because he belongs to the politically and socially powerful upper caste group of Lingayats, a community which returned to the Congress party fold in the 1999 elections. Krishna belongs to the other major caste group of Vokkaligas.

The community's votes had moved away to the Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the previous two elections, deeply hurt at the manner in which Congress party president Rajiv Gandhi had removed an ailing Veerendra Patil as chief minister in 1990.

Seeking to turn the tables on opposition parties which called for his resignation for allegedly mishandling the crisis, Krishna asked them to explain why they mounted pressure on government to call off the STF operations against Veerappan, PTI reports.