Indian brigand and dacoit, active for nearly 30 years in the scrublands and forests in the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He killed 184 people and 900 elephants.
Veerappan started as an assistant to a poachers and smuggler. He began his career in crime in 1970 and was first arrested in 1972. Veerappan initially developed as a sandalwood and ivory smuggler, killing elephants for the latter. He later started killing those who resisted his activities. He committed his first murder at the age of 17 and his victims tended to be police officers, forest officials, and informants.
In 1987, Veerappan kidnapped and murdered a forest officer named Chidambaram from Tamil Nadu. This first brought him to the Indian Government’s attention. Among his best-known killings are a senior IFS officer named Pandillapalli Srinivas in November 1991, and an ambush of a police party including a senior IPS officer, Harikrishna, among others, in August 1992.
Veerappan was not averse to killing civilians, and killed a man from his native village for having once travelled in a police jeep. He regularly killed anyone suspected of being a police informer. Because of political instability, Veerappan could easily escape from one state to another.
On 18 October 2004, Veerappan and two of his associates were killed by the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force near the village of Papparapatti in Dharmapuri district, Tamil Nadu.

Link to Wikipedia biography