Veerappan aide serving life dies in jail

Mysuru: Late forest brigand Veerappan’s associate Bilavendran, 70, serving life sentence for blowing-up a police vehicle and killing 22 policemen in 1993, died due to illness in Mysuru early on Thursday morning.
He was ailing for a week and admitted to the government-run KR Hospital where he breathed last, said KC Divyashree, chief superintendent of prisons, Mysuru. Bilavendran was in Mysuru Central Prison since 2014.
According to officials, he had served 25 years in jail since his arrest after the landmine blast.
It was on 9 April 1993, that Veerappan and his aides had killed a team of 22 Tamil Nadu policemen near Palar in MM Hills range in Chamarajnagar district by blowing up a landmine.
As many as 143 persons including Veerappan, his wife Muthulakshmi were named as accused in the case. While many of them died during investigation, warrants were served against surviving members. Early this year, Chamarajanagar police detained – Stella - one of the accused who was absconding since the blast. She was arrested nearly 27 years after the incident. Four accused in the case are still at large and their whereabouts not known.
Bilavendran, a resident of Martalli in Kollegal taluk of Chamarajanagar district, was among more than two dozen people convicted in the case.