Karnataka announces reward for STF

The Karnataka government on Thursday announced a Rs 50 crore reward package for the state's Special Task Force (STF) personnel and officers involved in the operations to nab forest brigand Veerappan.

Each of them would be given a cash reward of up to Rs five lakh, a free plot, special medical allowance and one salary increment, chief minister N Dharam Singh said at the Police Commemoration Day function here.

The expenditure to the state exchequer on this account would be around Rs 50 crore, Singh said as he commended Karnataka and Tamil Nadu STF for ending the Veerappan menace.

Recalling that it was during his tenure as Karnataka home minister that STF was formed, the chief minister said the end of the Veerappan chapter was a culmination of efforts put in by personnel and officers for many years.

Meanwhile, a noted forensic scientist has confirmed the identity of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan after an external ear study.

This comes in the wake of a speculation fuelled by certain sections that had questioned the identity of the dead body, especially since the trademark handlebar moustache on the face of Veerappan was missing when he was shot dead on Monday night.

P Chandra Sekharan, who was the principal scientific investigator in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said that he studied the anatomical structures of the external ear of Veerappan from ante-mortem and post-mortem photographs and compared them to get the confirmation.

Veerappan was shot dead by the Special Task Force personnel in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu on Monday.

External ear's anatomical structure differs from individual to individual and constitutes a characteristic feature of personal identification, the former director of Tamil Nadu government's Forensic Science Department explained in a statement here.

Pointing out that the combination of various parts of the external ear such as helix, antihelix, triangular fossa, tragus and lobule was unique to an individual, he said, "Veerappan's ear is unique with a flat tragus formation and the tragus being contiguous with the curved portion of the helix".

"The lobule is enlarged and squarish in shape. These peculiar features, in my opinion, are more than enough to confirm the identity of Veerappan," Chandra Sekharan added.