Sandalwood smuggler Veerappan's elder brother dead

Coimbatore: Madhaiyan, the elder brother of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan died of a cardiac arrest at the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College and Hospital in Salem in the early hours of Wednesday, police said. Madhaiyan, aged 80 was undergoing a life term in the Salem Central prison and was admitted to the hospital, following complaints of severe chest pain on May 1. A court in Erode had sentenced him to a life term in connection with the murder of a forest ranger, Chidamabaram in 1987 and was in jail for the last 34 years. He had served a jail term in Mysuru for a murder case and was then shifted to the Coimbatore and Salem prisons, police said. A native of Kadumalaikoodal near Mettur in Salem district, Madhaiyan leaves behind his wife, police said. Veerappan, who ruled over forest areas in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala for more than two decades, was killed in an encounter with the STF personnel of Tamil Nadu police, in 2004.—PTI