"Bandit", like "brigand", has a romantie ring. To some ears it evokes fugitive outlaws-from Robin Hood to Jesse James-who have seemed nobler than the forces of law and order on their trail. It is probably how the man known throughout India simply as Veerappan would like to be remembered. That, however, would be an injustice to the 124 people he is said to have killed. Veerappan was a murderer, and a cruel one at that. An Osama-style old video shows him talking with relish of the pain inflicted on one victim before he blew his head off. Veerappan was himself shot through the forehead when the police ambushed him and three henchmen. His proud killers posed around his corpse with broad smiles and their thumbs up, like tiger-hunters. But the applause for them was not universal. In the villages dotting the thick forest that was his stomping ground, some recalled Veerappan showering sweets on children and reports of his generosity to the poor..The families of the dozens he had killed as informers were incredulous. But some 20,000 packed the village where his funeral was held, drawn by his mystique and his fame. His distraught widow told journalists he was a good man, though her two daughters hardly knew him.
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