Chennai, Aug. 7 :     'Go ahead and read,' the voice, purportedly that of Veerappan, barks out and then trails off, leaving behind a host of unanswered questions. In the five-minute micro-cassette sent to the government yesterday and made available exclusively to The Telegraph, Veerappan has demanded the release of five prisoners from Tamil nationalist outfits, sparking questions about why the bandit has taken up the cause of men who have no links with him or his gang. The demand is part of the price quoted by the smuggler for freeing hostage star Raj Kumar. However, the voice in the tape claiming to be Veerappan's is different from the one heard on the videos filmed by Nakkeeran editor R. Gopal. The heavy, metallic tenor is missing in the cassette sent yesterday. As government sources had admitted yesterday, the voices of two men can be heard on the tape. Someone who identifies himself as Veerappan speaks first. Addressing the two chief ministers, the man says that one of his men would read out his demands. The other man takes over and reads out the list in the order in which they were specified yesterday. The government, however, had been silent on the names of prisoners that the bandit king wants released. It had also kept mum on the warning issued by the man reading out the demands. 'The government will have to take the sole responsibility for any consequence that might arise if our demands are not conceded...' the man says before winding up. Neither chief minister had spoken about the threat. In the cassette, the man making the demands has listed the names of five prisoners Veerappan wants released: Venkatesan and Ponnivalavan of the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army and Muthukumar, Manikantan and Sathyamurthy of the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Force. What is baffling is why the outlaw should seek their release and not that of his brother Madhaiyan or any of his associates. That Veerappan has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the nationalists buttresses the argument that he has become a convert to the Tamil cause. While the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army is known to operate in a couple of northern and central districts, the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Force is based down south but may since have moved into the central region. The Liberation Army was a rump of the People's War Group which was active in the Seventies and Eighties but was decimated during the crackdown launched by Jayalalitha's police chief Waltar Dawaram. Thamizharasan of the PWG had floated the Liberation Army and he was the one who married Marxist ideology with that of Tamil nationalism in an attempt to widen the base of his movement. The outfit carried out several strikes, including the blast on a passenger train in 1986. Subsequently, during a failed bank robbery, Thamizharasan and his associates were stoned to death by the people. After his death, the group broke up and many of the self-styled leaders became mafia-type gangsters. One of them, Maran, is said to have won the confidence of Veerappan. Some observers claimed that the second voice heard in the micro-cassette is that of Maran. The Liberation Army draws heavily from the unemployed Vanniar youth, a caste that Veerappan claims to represent. The Retrieval Force, on the other hand, was discovered during the investigations into Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. Some of its members were trained by the LTTE 'for mobilising an army and liberating Tamil Nadu from the clutches of the North Indian banias and Brahmins'. The outfits is not all that active now. Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna said today that Raj Kumar was reportedly being held captive within the 15-km radius of Gajanur and 'we hope the release will take place in the next 48 hours'.