By Sunaad Raghuram Mysore Aug 31: For the young and upright police officer, Shakeel Ahmed, the icy arm of death must have felt even more cold when it reached out and grabbed him on Aug 14, 1992. By all accounts he wasn’t afraid of death. But dying at the hands of the one man whose extermination had become his maniacal obsession — brigand Veerappan — must have been quite galling. Much water has flowed down the Palar river in Veerappan`s bastion since the day Shakeel fell, martyred by a hail of bullets from the muskets of Veerappan and his gangsters. But his selfless deeds live on. His father Abdul Kareem`s “bitter fight to the last drop of my blood,” is what has now galvanised the Supreme Court to directly intervene in la` affaire Veerappan. Shakeel Ahmed joined the Karnataka police service in 1981, armed with an M.Sc in Geology. A no-nonsense police officer, he was the scourge of many. Perhaps it was his abiding interest in his chosen subject that had not just enabled him to come out in flying colours in the Geological Survey of India (GSI) examinations but also leave no stone unturned in his quest to weed out those involved in crime! “My father felt that the family tradition of serving the police department should be carried on. So Shakeel eventually became a policeman, although he was so brilliant that he had even passed the IAS preliminary exams,” explained his brother Jameel Ahmed. Shakeel`s postings took him to Chikmagalur as also the State special branch, Bangalore and eventually Mysore. In 1988, he was made part of Lashkar Mohalla police station in his hometown Mysore. It was then that Shakeel went hammer and tongs putting the junkyard (Gujari) mafia on tenterhooks. They were just not allowed to breathe freely. It was towards the end of 1989 that SP Bipin Goplalkrishna, who knew all about Shakeel`s acts of guts and gumption, drafted him on sporadic missions to make inroads into Veerappan`s territory. Shakeel first encountered Veerappan in 1990, during the Silvekkal operation, which resulted in the seizure of ivory worth over 1.25 crore. It was one of the biggest tragedies faced by the Karnataka police — the killing of four sub-inspectors and the injuring of a few more — by Veerappan near Hogenakal, that made Shakeel rush back from Panjim and dive headlong into the operations of the STF. His two-and-half-year tenure with the STF saw innumerable attacks launched on the Veerappan gang. The high point of his career came on Feb 15, 1992. Shakeel along with his superior, SP Harikrishna, posed as arms dealers from Mumbai, in an act of supreme courage and tactical acumen, and made contact with Gurunathan, a sharp shooter and right hand man of the brigand. It was Shakeel Ahmed, senior police officers admit readily, who worked out the strategy for two long months, to get within shooting range to Veerappan himself using Gurunathan as a conduit. Shakeel never got to take aim at Veerappan from close range but Gurunathan, wasn`t so lucky. He was shot in the head and killed. It is said that Veerappan was so furious and frustrated with Shakeel Ahmed`s deeds that he swore at a forest temple to finish him off within three months of Gurunathan’s killing. Veerappan managed to keep his vow. But it took him six months. Death had indeed snuffed out a bright flame.