Bangalore, Oct. 19: An army of 900 men backed by resources to the tune of Rs 20 crore was deployed for more than a decade to track down the country?s most wanted bandit.

Official sources said 900 men, including a crack force called the Ninth Battalion, constituted the special task force (STF) of Karnataka.

A similar force (in terms of number of men) joined in from Tamil Nadu for combing operations in Male Mahadeswar hills in Karnataka and the adjoining forests in the neighbouring state.

The joint STF was set up in April 1993, soon after a blast triggered by the gang claimed the lives of 22 policemen of Tamil Nadu.

According to S.C. Burman, retired DGP who led the STF between 1993 and 1995, the search operations resulted in the arrest of Veerappan?s wife Muthulakshmi in 1993.

?We were supported by BSF men when we blasted one of his hideouts a day before her arrest. We succeeded in reducing the gang to five men within two years. We lost three men but shot down 18 of his gang. His brother Arjunan and two others surrendered in December 1994, but he (Arjunan) committed suicide next year (while in custody),? he said.

The operations were hindered by a lack of support from the Centre a couple of times.

Though it despatched five companies of the BSF in 1993, the state?s plea for central forces met with no response from Delhi.

Soon after the death of former minister H. Nagappa in 2002, the state requested additional forces and sophisticated weapons.

The weapons were put on hold with the Centre placing the requests from Jammu and Kashmir and the border states ahead of Karnataka.