Relationship goals, squad goals, these goals, those goals, are quite common these days. One among these is mustache goals. Once puberty hit, all you do is wait for that facial hair to grow and watch your face become even manlier. Though we may have come across serious mustache goals, this man could beat all of the other goals combined. His bad-ass attitude and killer mustache contributed in making him the most famous decoy of all time. He is Veerappan- the notorious king of the jungle.
Hunting down his first elephant only at the age of 10, Veerappan knew from the very beginning that he wasn’t meant for a good and innocent life. Soon after some years, he joined a gang of poachers and had accepted the fact that life from there was going to be a roller coaster ride for him. A dangerous one at that. His guru Selvi Gounder was the one who taught him how to gun down tuskers and he had killed more than 900 elephants while he was alive. He was responsible for smuggling sandalwood and ivory which were worth millions.
And yes, having that kind of a mustache had its own perks at that time. Apparently, Muthulakshmi who was Veerappan’s wife fell for his mustache. A decoy deserves love too, right? The then most wanted man of India frequently kidnapped people for ransom and the victims included a regional minister and a Kannada movie star. Two of the people who were held captive by him have penned down their experience. The book is named ‘Birds, Beasts, and Bandits: 14 days with Veerappan’.
Veerappan was known for keeping the police officials always on their toes, killing about 94 of them. Over the years, policemen from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka tried capturing him but to no avail. Veerappan knew the whole jungle in and out and succeeded in eluding the armed forces every single time. He could figure out which animal is around just by listening to the sound of the leaves being crushed under its feet. Apart from all of this, he sure did have the best PR team. He had roped in young tribal girls along with a number of journalists and TV companies to work for him. It is said that he had contacts in New York and London too.
Once it so happened that the Special Task Force had managed to capture him and were about to shoot him when Veerappan fished out his phone and called one of his contacts. The person on the other end then immediately contacted the STF officials and they had no choice but to let him go. Such was the power of Veerappan! But soon enough, “Operation Cocoon” was brought into force to trap him, which cost the government officials a fortune. But in 2004, he was finally shot dead along with 3 of his associates. The reward for handing Veerappan over to the police was Rs. 5 crores at the time which is a lot considering this was decades ago. Decoy goals, isn’t it?
