Ashish Vachani, District Collector, Dharmapuri, spoke over the telephone about the extraordinary chain of events that took place since the death of Veerappan last night.

I had known of the operation at 11pm and was informed of his death at 2.30, 3 am. Basically we function as the executive magistrate. The FIR (First Information Report) was received, the revenue divisional officer conducts an inquest and a preliminary inquiry done because this was a case of police firing.

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A postmortem was conducted [at the Dharmapuri General Hospital], the postmortem is over now and the body is in the Dharmapuri Hospital.

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How long the body will remain in the hospital depends on two things -- when the family comes to claim the body. I am not quite sure who will come (from the family) and how long it will remain at the hospital.

The second thing, there are people who will be coming to see this -- like press people. This is what we are coordinating right now.

Images: End of the road for Veerappan