Bandit who kidnapped film star issues demands on tape

As the capital of India's IT boom, Bangalore rarely looks backwards. Last week, however, "Silicon City" was confronted by a scene that could have come from an earlier era. Fanatical movie fans brought the software centre to a halt for three days after their ageing screen idol, Rajkumar, was kidnapped last Sunday by another folk hero, the notorious smuggler Veerappan.

As the capital of India's IT boom, Bangalore rarely looks backwards. Last week, however, "Silicon City" was confronted by a scene that could have come from an earlier era. Fanatical movie fans brought the software centre to a halt for three days after their ageing screen idol, Rajkumar, was kidnapped last Sunday by another folk hero, the notorious smuggler Veerappan.

It's impossible to imagine the US's Silicon Valley grinding to a halt if Michael Douglas or Meg Ryan had been seized. American executives among Bangalore's software multinationals looked on in disbelief as businesses were forced to close amid the mayhem that cost the industry 100,000 work days.

But then, it's equally hard to conceive of a figure quite like the bandit kidnapper, Veerappan. The wiry ivory poacher and smuggler of precious perfumed sandalwood, who sports an extravagant handlebar moustache, has stalked the jungles of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for almost two decades.

Police want him for the murders of at least 120 people, including his own baby daughter, allegedly strangled so that her cries would not give him away. He is the last of a dying breed of outlaws which once included the internationally known "Bandit Queen", Phoolan Devi.

Veerappan's stature as India's "most wanted" man is more than matched by his hapless victim, one of the nation's most revered stars. Rajkumar, 72, is an icon of the Kannada-language cinema of Karnataka. In a career that has spanned nearly five decades and 220 films, he played all manner of characters - including Hindu gods, of course - that earned him the highest praise far beyond his native state.

The Tamil Nadu government is taking no chances. Police have been told to keep a low profile while an intermediary, R Raja Gopal, editor of a Tamil-language magazine, attempts to negotiate in the jungle. Mr Gopal has established contact with the bandit's men but has yet to meet their leader. Yesterday he was given a tape cassette on which a man, believed to be Veerappan, issued a short but "businesslike" list of demands, which have not been made public. An earlier tape had carried a plea from Rajkumar that the authorities should agree to Veerappan's wishes.

Here, then, is a compelling tale of two towering characters in which the boundaries between life and art appear to have blurred. But why would the unfailingly polite Veerappan, whose Robin Hood-like acts of generosity to impoverished villages have softened his ruthless image, risk it all by kidnapping Rajkumar? Few doubt that it is the latest of the increasingly desperate attempts by the 56-year-old bandit to hang up his muzzle-loading rifle.

He has tried to surrender before. In 1996 and 1997 he seized groups of forest rangers in an effort to cut a deal with the authorities, but both times he released them unharmed after negotiations failed. Last time round he wanted to serve just two years in an open-air prison. Earlier he had demanded that his life story be filmed - with himself as director. Perhaps his fascination with films provided the idea for the latest drama.

Veerappan's health is no longer up to the rigours of jungle life. Once he was said to trek five or 10 miles a night in his flip-flops and olive-green fatigues to avoid capture. But asthma and stomach problems from years of drinking dirty water have slowed him. He seems to be looking for a way out of a life that began when he killed his first elephant as a teenager.

The tally of elephants slaughtered by his "forest brigands" stands at more than 2,000, but his focus switched to sandalwood smuggling when the ivory trade slumped in the mid-Eighties. Many police have died because of his junglecraft: he uses perfectly mimicked animal calls to signal his men. He was caught once, but grease on his wrists allowed him to slip his manacles and escape, murdering four guards in the process. His expanding smuggling empire led him into ever greater conflict with the authorities in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In 1990 they formed a 15,000-strong Special Task Force to track him down once and for all, but his intimate knowledge of the dense mountainous jungle was too good for them.

Among villagers he is viewed with a mixture of awe and fear. While he has given money from his smuggling exploits for Hindu temples, he has also killed those who might betray him, reportedly parading their heads on stakes as a warning to others. Fact has merged with fiction to create a Veerappan legend - while there are claims that he stands 10ft tall, he is in reality rather short: just 5ft 6ins. The seizure of Rajkumar will merely add to his myth.