India, May 2 -- Peninsular India has seen one of the most dreaded poachers of wild elephants and smugglers of sandalwood of the 1980s and 1990s in Veerappan. Along with his gang, he operated in the forests connecting the Eastern and Western Ghats, as well as in the Western Ghats spread over the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

Caught once by the police in a restaurant in Bengaluru during a routine check ahead of the 1986 SAARC summit, Veerappan escaped from Budhipadaga forest rest house custody, where he was undergoing interrogation. Thereafter, he remained elusive for nearly 18 years and continued poaching wild elephants for tusks and plundering sandalwood trees in the forests of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Based on credible i...