As an IGP of Southern Range here in city, Kempaiah was not able to shift to the official residence as his predecessor was still occupying the bungalow, wanting time to vacate. Apparently he was staying in a guest house. As was my wont, I was on my morning walk from my house in K. C. Nagar towards Lalithadripura village. And whom do I see, coming from the opposite direction? Kempaiah.
Being not in uniform and having not seen him since 2000, I was unable to place him immediately but soon recognised him thus avoiding an embarrassing situation. We exchanged greetings with some excitement, halted and engaged ourselves in small talk. I saw his security guard a few yards behind him, holding the walkie - talkie and a Police jeep following him from a distance. As I had traversed a considerable distance already I decided to give him company.
Our conversation veered to the subject of school admissions and the prohibitively high cost of donation. I mentioned that in these days of IT, BT with companies like Infosys and Wipro offering job opportunities only to those who know English, how can a poor Police constable’s child be educated in an English Medium School etc., etc. Spontaneously Kempaiah said, "Yes, why not start an English medium school to help the poor police constable's children?" The seed for a great project apparently got embedded in the fertile mind of Kempaiah.
He asked if there was any land that I could suggest and I suddenly remembered a place called Horse Shoe Valley near Uttanahalli, at the foot of Chamundi Hill that I had seen a few months back for a failed project. Kempaiah, a person who believes in doing today what could be done tomorrow, immediately said he would like to see the place if I could spare the time. He called the jeep and all of us jumped into it.
Now, I was the navigator. And I was nervous. Having seen the Horse Shoe Valley only once, I was not sure either of the road or the exact location. Yet, I managed to take him to the spot. I thought, he would survey the area sitting in the jeep and like most government officials drive away. But no. Kempaiah was a different kind of government officer. We entered the land covered with thick bushes, trees and an undergrowth of grass and started walking, followed by his security. I thought he would walk a short distance and return to the vehicle. But the man was on the move. It was nice of him to ask me to stay back. But I volunteered thinking it would be an additional dose of exercise, trekking, good for health. So it was. We walked, believe it or not, for almost 20 minutes covering the vast area along the border.
When we came back, a couple of curious villagers appeared near the jeep and Kempaiah was quick to enquire about their presence and the village. One among them identified himself as belonging to Lingayat community and a staunch supporter of Siddharamaiah. He said he knew about the land and the owners. Kempaiah asked him to visit him in his office with the owners and the documents. After a few days I asked Kempaiah if the villagers had visited him. He said indeed they had visited but the documents seemed unauthentic, if not fake.
After a few months, when I met Kempaiah at some function he mentioned that he was trying to evict some encroachers of the land belonging to the Police Department in Udayagiri and he would like to start the school there. I said it was great. The location and the area, nearly 24 acres of land, is in a very ideal locality where all around it was Police Quarters and offices.
But for Kempaiah's dedication, commitment and determination, the land would have been lost forever to the Department as the encroachers had already got the Khata in their name and some people had already laid claim on a portion of the land with the support of local politicians for construction of a place of worship and a school. This had led to a minor skirmish at the time of constructing the compound wall in which one or two Policemen were also involved and, I learn, a criminal case is still pending against them!
Then, one day Kempaiah telephoned me and asked if I could agree to be a Trustee of the Trust which was being created for the purpose of setting up this school. Reluctant, though, I accepted the offer, wondering what would be my contribution. This time Kempaiah was lucky. Though the school construction work was neglected after he left because of the "why this additional burden and go beyond the call of duty" attitude I mentioned earlier by his successor, it got a shot in the arm when IGP Jeevan Kumar Gaonkar took office.
I must mention here Kempaiah's large heart and a personal huge donation to the Police Public School. The government gave a reward of Rs. 1.5 crore to 30 STF personnel including Kempaiah for their role in the operation when he was the Commander. He persuaded his colleagues to donate Rs. 77. 5 lakh towards the Police Public School, Mysore, and distributed Rs. 2. 5 lakh each to the 29 members (totally Rs. 72. 5 lakh) and he did not take his share. What magnanimity!
Here I remember a similar magnanimous - officer Shankar Bidri, the present Police Commissioner of Bangalore, who was also a receiver of government reward for his service in STF as Commander. Of his individual Rs. 1.60 crore reward, he kept only Rs. 25 lakh for himself donating the remaining for charity.
After Police Commissioner Kempaiah was transferred from Mysore, he was posted as the Commandant of the STF and one thought that was end of Veerappan. He made Veerappan to run for shelter in MM Hills. A plan was in place to catch him any time. But, for some strange reason the State Government transferred him. Politics again. Immediately after his transfer, Veerappan resurfaced from his hideout and took Nagappa, ex - Minister of Karnataka, as hostage for a ransom and killed him.
During his tenure as STF Chief, Kempaiah maintained wonderful relationship with his Tamil Nadu counterparts like Walter Dewaram IPS and Vijayakumar IPS. In fact, the then TN Chief Minister Jayalalitha praised Kempaiah for his unreserved co - ordination and exchange of intelligence with TN STF in her interview to BBC.
The role of Kempaiah as the STF Commander was so important that it could be said with some pride that but for him the intelligence collection would have totally failed. It was Kempaiah who once again made it possible by ways only he could think of. It is said that he made dhobis, labourers and hawkers of plastic and aluminium wares out of his men to collect intelligence from the surrounding villages that were sympathetic to Veerappan. It was because of the intelligence thus collected, he was able to surround Veerappan in a radius of just 3 kms.
Unfortunately for reasons best known to the then Chief Minister, he was called back. It also speaks volumes about Kempaiah's courage and confidence as a Police Officer when he was posted to STF, a posting considered those days not only as risky but also a punishment. Risky because earlier many Police Officers were killed including one SP Harikrishna while some of the officers posted, for this reason, got the posting cancelled. Kempaiah, however, welcomed it both as a challenge and an opportunity.
Till Kempaiah came on the scene, there was no co-ordination between the TN Police and Karnataka Police who instead of working in tandem, worked at cross purposes each wanting to take credit if and when Veerappan was caught or killed. It was for this reason Kempaiah built a rapport with the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa with a tacit understanding about arresting Kolathur Mani, Nakkiran Gopal and Shivasubramanyam. The Tamil Nadu Police were hesitant to go after these three for the reason that these three had LTTE connections and the opposition DMK might give a political colour to their arrest.
To cut a long story short, Kempaiah soon arrested these three and was able to recover some of the ransom money, given to the forest brigand, loaded into lorry tyre tubes and buried in different places in the forest.
Indeed, credit should also be given to Shankar Bidri, who had adopted a different strategy of deterrence and retaliation thereby eliminating a large number of Veerappan's aides reducing their number to about eight.
To revert to the Police Public School, thanks to our IGP Southern Range, Jeevan Kumar Gaonkar, this time though Kempaiah was in Bangalore, he was not sidelined or forgotten at the inauguration of the school and at the informal opening of the building with a puja. Formal opening by the Chief Minister is being planned in the near future and I hope Kempaiah will also be a VIP invitee on the occasion.
