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Nagappa's supporters unhappy with Krishna's attitude

Nagappa's supporters are unhappy with Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna as they believe he is not as serious about securing Nagappa's release as he was in the case of actor Rajakumar.

Nagappa's Lingayat community, with the support if its seers, is planning a series of bandhs starting from Tuesday to pressurise the government.

While on one hand, the government of Karnataka is putting its faith in the Special Task Force by giving it full freedom to act against sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, on the other, it has sanctioned a month-long study leave to its commander R P Sharma to visit to USA.

R P Sharma, who has a doctorate to his credit, is about to leave some time in September.

Naturally, this has caused confusion among political parties and the supporters of JD(U) leader H Nagappa, who is now in Veerappan's custody.

The opposition parties have from the very beginning favoured negotiations and demanded immediate suspension of combing operations by the STF.

During his visit to Kamagere to meet Nagappa's family, Chief Minister S M Krishna had indicated that negotiations would indeed be the chosen mode for securing the former minister's release.

But this strategy seems to have taken shape even before Nagappa's abduction when R P Sharma took over from Kempaiah, perceived to be a tough cop, about four months back. He is said to have spent most of his short tenure attending to administrative matters causing the opposition to accuse the government of going soft on Veerappan.

However, after Nagappa was abducted, the government recalled Kempaiah and, after a cabinet meeting on Saturday, Home Minister Mallikarjun Kharge announced that the STF had been given 'full freedom' to deal with Veerappan as it deems fit.

Besides adding to the confusion, Nagappa's supporters were unhappy that while the chief minister had taken personal responsibility of ensuring actor Rajakumar's release, this time, he appears to have entrusted the responsibility to his home minister.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt from sources close to Nagappa's family that his wife Parimala is planning to plead her case before Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

In another development, rumours of a doctor's abduction by Veerappan were spiked when police revealed that he had gone to visit his sick wife in Mysore. The doctor is employed at the government Primary Health Centre in Lokkanahalli, a village near Nagappa's native Kamagere village.

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