Shooting of Killing Veerappan begins

The shooting for Ram Gopal Verma's first Kannada film Killing Veerappan is in full swing. Though Veerappan built his terror empire in the forest range bordering Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the shooting is taking place in another piece of evergreen forest area of Karnataka: Uttara Kannada district.The shooting commenced a few days ago in Yellapura taluk in the district. An old Anganawadi building was the location in a place called Telakachowka.
A surprise on the film set was the presence of producer Rockline Venkatesh who is said to be playing a role in the film. Sanchari Vijay who won the national award for acting earlier this year has also been roped in to play a role. However, Shivarajkumar has not yet joined shooting. He is scheduled to join the shoot next week after completing a schedule of his other film Santeyalli Ninta Kabeera.
Theatre artiste Sandeep Bharadwaj is playing the role of Veerappan in the film. Veerappan has been portayed in Kannada a films earlier too. In the nearly two-decade old film Veerappan, Devaraj played the e brigand. In the more recent film Attahasa a by AMR Ramesh, Kishore portrayed the character. Moogu Suresh too played Veerappan in one film.
Killing Veerappan, as the title makes it clear, is about the last days of Veerappann and how he was hunted down and shot dead. This was also the crux of Attahasa, which was made in both Kannada and Tamil. Verma's clincher however is getting Shivrajkumar, the son of the late Kannada film icon.
Rajkumar to act in the film. Rajkumar was abducted by Veerappan in 2000 after which there was an increased effort by the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments to nab or kill the brigand. This was achieved in 2004. .
As to what role Shivrajkumar is playing in the film has been kept a secret. It was the Tamil Nadu special forces that t eventually shot dead Veerappan. In Attahasa, Arjun Sarja played the role of K Vijay Kumar, the police officer who took the lead in the killing of the dreaded poacher.