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Following the abduction of a former minister by brigand Veerappan, top police officials rushed to Hanur in Kollegal taluka of Chamrajnagar district on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border in the wee hours of Monday for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
T Srinivasulu (ex-DGP), the high-profile security advisor to the Karnataka government, is also in the border district.
The sandalwood smuggler has abducted H Nagappa who was a minister J H Patel's Janata Dal government.
Chief Minister S M Krishna or Home Minister Mallikarjuna Kharge is expected to brief the media later in the evening on the developments in this connection.
At present, Krishna, Kharge and other ministers are busy with the valedictory function of the Seva Dal workers' training camp at Ghataprabha in Belgaum district where Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be in attendance.
Krishna was scheduled to leave on Wednesday for the US on a week-long trip after attending the Cauvery River Authority meeting, chaired by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, in Delhi on Tuesday. Whether he will go ahead with his foreign tour remains to be seen.
What is known is that he has convened an all-party meeting in Bangalore on Monday evening to discuss the situation.
Earlier when Kannada film star Rajakumar and four others were taken hostage by the outlaw, Krishna had stated the government's response after consulting opposition parties.
The abduction has disproved the police contention that Veerappan has not been operating in Karnataka territory.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday ruled out the possibility of sending an emissary to negotiate with Veerappan for the release of Nagappa.
Talking to newspersons after holding talks with Director-General of Police B P Nailwal, the chief minister said there was no official information as yet from the Karnataka government on the details of the abduction.
She was also non-committal on discussing the issue with Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna on the sidelines of the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority on Tuesday.
Jayalalithaa said that STF operations against the brigand, jointly conducted by the two states, suffered setbacks following the exit of senior Karnataka police officer D Kempaiah and former Tamil Nadu DGP W I Dawaram.
Nailwal is slated to leave for Coimbatore to study the situation and reinvigorate the STF. The Tamil Nadu STF unit has launched massive combing operations anticipating the possibility of Veerappan crossing over to Tamil Nadu jungles without waiting for the Karnataka unit to formally ask it to do so.
Meanwhile, additional police forces had been deployed to assist the Karnataka unit of the Special Task Force in the combing operations against the poacher-smuggler, a top police official said.
He said police patrolling had been intensified in Kamagere, a village near Kollegal, in the wake of tension following protests against the abduction of Nagappa who had been demanding the arrest of the fugitive for several years.
The bandit had shot off a threatening letter to Nagappa about a year ago threatening to abduct him following which the Janata Dal leader had been given tight security.
Another source in the police department said Veerappan might have struck at Nagappa's house as police were busy with the maiden visit of Kannada film star Rajakumar to nearby Gajanur on Sunday.
The film star, who was abducted by the outlaw two years ago, was advised by the police to return to Bangalore.
With inputs from PTI
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