Top cop Vijay Kumar who eliminated Veerapan named advisor to J&K Governor

Vijay Kumar led the Special Task Force which was instrumental in launching Operation Cocoon to capture or kill Veerapan.

Vijay Kumar led the Special Task Force which was instrumental in launching Operation Cocoon to capture or kill Veerapan. Photo: Twitter

NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir was placed under Governor's rule on Wednesday and the state Assembly kept in suspended animation, as Governor N N Vohra reviewed security measures and brought in former top cop Vijay Kumar, a counter-insurgency specialist, as one of his two advisers. A day after the PDP-BJP government collapsed after the BJP snapped its three-year-old alliance with the regional party citing "larger national interest" and "deteriorating security situation", a Union Home Ministry spokesman said in the morning that President Ram Nath Kovind has approved imposition of Governor's rule in the border state with immediate effect. According to an official communique, Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer B V R Subrahmanyam was appointed as the Chief Secretary of the state in place of B B Vyas, who along with K Vijay Kumar, a former IPS officer and an anti-naxal expert, were named advisers to Governor Vohra. Kumar's experience ranges from jungle warfare and security detail to counter-insurgency. The names of advisers were cleared by the Union Home Ministry after the state was put under the Governor's rule. Kumar, a 1975 batch IPS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, had earlier served in the Kashmir valley as Inspector General of BSF in 1998-2001 when the border guarding force was actively involved in the counter-militancy operations. Kumar, 65, had shot to fame when he headed the Special Task Force (STF) for a long time and strategised operations that culminated in the elimination of the dreaded forest brigand Veerappan after an encounter in Tamil Nadu in October 2004. He was later appointed as Director General of world's largest paramilitary force -- CRPF-- after naxals killed 75 personnel in Dantewada in 2010. Kumar also wrote a book on Veerappan, who had ruled 6,000 sq km forest in three Southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala for more than two decades, poached over 200 elephants, smuggled ivory worth hundreds of crore of rupees and killed more than 180 people, mostly police and forest officials. Kumar led the Special Task Force which was instrumental in launching Operation Cocoon to capture or kill Veerapan. As per reports, the Operation Cocoon was planned for ten months during which STF personnel infiltrated as hawkers, masons and local service staff in the villages where Veerappan was roaming. The day he was killed, October 18, 2004, Veerapan was planning to take a medical treatment for his eye in South Arcot. Veerapan was first escorted out of the forest to the ambulance stationed at Papirappati village in Dharmapuri district, which was a police vehicle, by one of the policeman who earlier infiltrated his gang. A group of STF members was stationed in the village, a few security men were hiding in security tankers in the road and others were hiding in the bushes. The driver of the ambulance, who was also a policeman, made an escape. As per police report, Veerappan and his gang were first warned and then asked to surrender, which was denied and the gang started firing at the STF personnel. The STF retaliated by firing grenades and gun fire. Veerappan was killed on the spot, while his gangmen died on the ambulance taking them to the government hospital.