Bangalore: Forest brigand Veerappan has insisted on sending Tamil activists P Nedumaran and Kolathur Mani as emissaries to negotiate on his demands for the release of Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader H Nagappa, in the second cassette sent by him after keeping the Government on tenterhooks for 12 days.

Veerappan has also repeated his demand, made in the first cassette, to suspend the operations by the Special Task Force (STF) to hunt him down, official sources said on September 5 night.

The cassette, addressed to Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna, said Nedumaran and Mani should be sent as emissaries to "hear my grievances", the sources said.

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An appeal by Nagappa to meet Veerappan's demands is also contained in the two-minute cassette, a copy of which was sent to the family of the former minister by the bandit, they said adding that the JD-U leader appeared to be "hale and hearty".

Nedumaran, arrested under Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) for expressing sympathies with the LTTE, is in a Tamil Nadu jail and has already expressed his willingness to act as a mediator, a role he played along with Mani to secure the release of Kannada film icon Rajkumar from the clutches of Veerappan two years ago.

Mani, who was arrested on charges of supplying arms and ammunition to the brigand, is in Bellary jail in Karnataka. He had sent an appeal through an audiocassette broadcast through AIR, asking Veerappan to release Nagappa.

According to sources, Nagappa had complained in the cassette about lack of proper food but sounded healthy.

After sending the first cassette in which he had blamed governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for allegedly "cheating" him, Veerappan had not sent any word which had become a matter of grave concern and anxiety for the government.

PTI