In a comic case of mistaken identity; wildlife photographers Krupakar and Senani were kidnapped one night from their home at the edge of the Bandipur National Park by Veerappan; India’s ‘most dreaded bandit’. He thought they were important government officials; and his plan was to hold them hostage in return for clemency and a substantial ransom. The bandit and his gang kept the hostages on the move in the forest; and their only contact with the outside world was via an old transistor radio. While Veerappan;who had already killed some 250 people; formulated strategies to force the government to agree to his demands; his hostages not only got a close look at the plant and animal diversity in the forests of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; but the intimacy of their life on the run gave them an insight into Veerappan’s strange mix of cruelty and humanity. Though Krupakar and Senani came from a world that was completely different from that of Veerappan’s gang; the kidnapped and the kidnappers became closely involved in each other’s concerns. Birds; Beasts and Bandits is a witty and poignant account of an extraordinary adventure with the notorious poacher and his companions.

Investigative Journalist Sunaad Raghuram S Meticulously Researched Biographical Account Of Veerappan Follows His Career From Small-Time Poacher To The Most Wanted Man In India. By 1990, Veerappan S Gang Of Sandalwood Smugglers And Ivory Poachers Had Become Such A Menace In The Forests Of Karnataka That The State Government Constituted A Special Task Force To Capture Him. Veerappan Then Turned To An Easier Way Of Making Money: Kidnapping Wealthy, Influential Men For Ransom. The Police Were Woefully Inadept At Second-Guessing His Moves And Even When They Had An Opportunity To Nab Him, They Were Thwarted By Lack Of Political Will And Rivalry Between Tamil Nadu And Karnataka Veerappan S Area Of Operation. His Accomplices And Members Of His Family, Including His Wife, Have Been Arrested, Tortured And Sometimes Killed In Encounters; Rewards Have Been Announced For Any Information That Could Lead To His Capture; And Almost All Means Of Persuasion Have Been Tried, But Veerappan Continues To Elude The Law. Raghuram Examines Veerappan S Relationship With His Wife, His Brothers And Members Of His Gang, And Describes In Detail The Method And Madness Of The Murders And Kidnappings Veerapppan Has Been Accused Of Over The Years. Based On Police Records, Media Reports And Interviews With Almost All Those Who Have Ever Had Anything To Do With Veerappan, Veerappan: The Untold Story Is A Riveting Portrait Of The Man Who Is Alternately Hailed As Messiah And Murderer.

Veerappan: poacher, smuggler, killer -- a fugitive who for more than three decades has sustained a crime frenzy as action packed and outlandish as anything Hollywood (or even Bollywood) could conjure. Determined to escape the crushing poverty of his childhood village, Veerappan was lured to a life of crime in his adolescence and eventually amassed a gang with as many as 150 members. He has kidnapped wealthy men, poached precious resources, and viciously ambushed police, killing more than a hundred. He stole such great quantities of explosives from nearby granite operations that the government ordered the industry to shut down. Yet to this day he has eluded capture, despite the government's creation of a special task force, the sole purpose of which is to stop him. The impenetrable Indian jungle provides him with shelter and refuge, while villagers, whether from fear or admiration, protect him from the police, so that year after year he has grown bolder and more power hungry. His most audacious act to date -- the kidnapping of India's biggest film star -- caused nationwide public upheaval and brought the film industry to a halt, while his demands for ransom presented the government with a crippling legal dilemma. Investigative journalist Sunaad Raghuram's meticulously researched report follows Veerappan's violent progression from a small-time poacher to the bloodthirsty criminal who has flouted the entire Indian police force and government for decades. Using the personal testimony of Veerappan's family members and closest associates, Raghuram recounts this outlaw's crimes and examines his personal life as well, including a surprisingly touching first person account of what Veerappan's wife has endured. Veerappan: India's Most Wanted Man details the methods and madness of a man alternately hailed as a messiah and condemned as a murderer.

The Life And Times Of The Sandalwood Brigand Engagingly Told By The Policeman Who Couldn`T Capture Him.

On November 8, 1985, 18-year-old Tom Odle brutally murdered his parents and three siblings in the small southern Illinois town of Mount Vernon, sending shockwaves throughout the nation. The murder of the Odle family remains one of the most horrific family mass murders in U.S. history. Odle was sentenced to death and, after seventeen years on death row, expected a lethal injection to end his life. However, Illinois governor George Ryan’s moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, and later commutation of all death sentences in 2003, changed Odle’s sentence to natural life. The commutation of his death sentence was an epiphany for Odle. Prior to the commutation of his death sentence, Odle lived in denial, repressing any feelings about his family and his horrible crime. Following the commutation and the removal of the weight of eventual execution associated with his death sentence, he was confronted with an unfamiliar reality. A future. As a result, he realized that he needed to understand why he murdered his family. He reached out to Dr. Robert Hanlon, a neuropsychologist who had examined him in the past. Dr. Hanlon engaged Odle in a therapeutic process of introspection and self-reflection, which became the basis of their collaboration on this book. Hanlon tells a gripping story of Odle’s life as an abused child, the life experiences that formed his personality, and his tragic homicidal escalation to mass murder, seamlessly weaving into the narrative Odle’s unadorned reflections of his childhood, finding a new family on death row, and his belief in the powers of redemption. As our nation attempts to understand the continual mass murders occurring in the U.S., Survived by One sheds some light on the psychological aspects of why and how such acts of extreme carnage may occur. However, Survived by One offers a never-been-told perspective from the mass murderer himself, as he searches for the answers concurrently being asked by the nation and the world.

This book is an overview and analysis of the global tradition of the outlaw hero. The mythology and history of the outlaw hero is traced from the Roman Empire to the present, showing how both real and mythic figures have influenced social, political, economic and cultural outcomes in many times and places. The book also looks at the contemporary continuations of the outlaw hero mythology, not only in popular culture and everyday life, but also in the current outbreak of global terrorism.

The Wild East bridges political economy and anthropology to examine a variety of il/legal economic sectors and businesses such as red sanders, coal, fire, oil, sand, air spectrum, land, water, real estate, procurement and industrial labour. The 11 case studies, based across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, explore how state regulative law is often ignored and/or selectively manipulated. The emerging collective narrative shows the workings of regulated criminal economic systems where criminal formations, politicians, police, judges and bureaucrats are deeply intertwined. By pioneering the field-study of the politicisation of economic crime, and disrupting the wider literature on South Asia’s informal economy, The Wild East aims to influence future research agendas through its case for the study of mafia-enterprises and their engagement with governance in South Asia and outside. Its empirical and theoretical contribution to debates about economic crimes in democratic regimes will be of critical value to researchers in Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Politics, Political Science and International Relations, Criminologists and Development Studies, as well as to those inside and outside academia interested in current affairs and the relationship between crime, politics and mafia enterprises.