Bangalore: Breaking his month-long silence, forest brigand Veerappan has demanded sending of two emissaries to him within eight days to negotiate the release of Janata Dal – United (JD-U) leader H Nagappa and the government indicated it was willing to depute one of the two mediators named by him.

"If he (local leader Mahadevaswamy) is willing, we are ready to facilitate his mission for negotiations," Karnataka Home Minister Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters during the padayatra by Chief Minister S M Krishna on Cauvery issue near Bidadi.

On Veerappan's demand for sending Tamil activist Kolathur Mani, who is in Bellary jail in Karnataka, along with Mahadevaswamy, Kharge said legal experts would be consulted on the issue and a decision taken.

Karnataka had earlier flatly ruled out sending Mani as an emissary as he was in jail. In the second cassette, Veerappan had insisted that either Mani or Tamil Nationalist Movement leader P Nedumaran be sent as an emissary.

In the third cassette, Veerappan has set an eight-day deadline to send emissaries, failing which he had threatened to harm the hostage Nagappa, Kharge said.

The third cassette, found in the lawns of Nagappa's farm house at Kamagere in Chamrajnagar district on October 7 evening, was handed over to Kharge by the JD (U) leader's son-in-law Kiran Patil. Kharge briefed Krishna on the contents of the cassette during the ongoing padayatra to the Cauvery basin districts of Mandya and Mysore.

PTI