Veerappan wife gets movie on bandit stayed

Bengaluru: Muthulakshmi may not be aware of how her husband is fast becoming a brand in the west. But in India, she is fighting a dedicated battle to protect the estate of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.
Others may adopt state-of-the-art methods to control the narrative across all forms of media. But Muthulakshmi seems focussed on movies. And it's a tough battle since the dominant narrative of Veerappan can be adversarial - in the eyes of the police and many others, Veerappan was a cold-blooded criminal and murderer.
The latest movie in Muthulakshmi's crosshairs is 'Killing Veerappan', made by filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma with Shivrajkumar, son of Kannada thespian Rajkumar abducted by the fugitive in 2000, in the lead.
On Thursday, Muthulakshmi said a sessions court in Bengaluru has granted a stay on the release or screening of 'Killing Veerappan'.
Muthulakshmi has alleged the film is an invasion of her and her children's lives. She said Varma, who had signed a contract with her to make a film only in Hindi, violated the terms by making it in the southern languages. She, however, seems blissfully unaware of the fact that her husband's image is being used to sell high-end perfumes and moustache waxes in the UK.
She sought a stay on the film, stating RGV promised not to portray her late husband negatively and that she wants to see all the three versions of the movie to be sure he has kept the promise. Muthulakshmi has demanded that the Justice Sadashiva Commission report indicting police personnel for killing people and raping women during anti-Veerappan operations should be implemented and compensation awarded.
In his early years, Veerappan was an assistant to his relative Sevi Gounder, a poacher and sandalwood smuggler. Beginning as a sandalwood and ivory smuggler, he later started killing those who resisted his activities - forest officials, police, informers. In 2002, Veerappan abducted H Nagappa, former minister of Karnataka. An encounter to release him failed, and Nagappa was found dead three months later.
The Special Task Force shot Veerappan dead on October 18, 2004 ending nearly two decades of terror he had unleashed in the forests of Kollegal, bordering Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The movie, due for release in December, is made in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, and is based on 'Operation Cocoon' which led to the Veerappan's killing.
In 2013, another tri-lingual movie - 'Attahasa' in Kannada, 'Veerappan' in Telugu, and 'Vana Yuddham' in Tamil - was dragged to the Madras high court, which granted the go-ahead to the film after the deletion of two scenes.