Dubai : Gopal Hosur Shares about his Encounter with Veerappan
by Shodhan Prasad
Pics by Harish Kamath Vittal / Ganesh Rai
Dubai, Feb 5: UAE BUNTS under the leadership of Sarvotham Shetty gathered at Zabeel Park, Dubai today the 5th February, 2010 at 10 AM for a ‘Family Meet 2010’ a full day open air event witnessed by more than 300 Bunts from all over UAE. It was learnt that UAE Bunts a vibrant community from the place of Tulu Naadu in Karnataka has 36 years of existence in UAE to their credit and an event like this one has been lively conducted for more than 20 years.
To grace the programmed, Gopal Hosur who took over the charge as Police Commissioner of Mangalore and Patron of Kannadigas in UAE, Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty both arrived at the occasion as Guest of Honour and Chief Guest respectively.
The programme started at around 11.15 am with Sarvotham Shetty taking over the charge to host the day long programme with his rich commanding voice. It started with Men & Women dodge ball game as a warm up game which woke up the crowd on to their toes. Very carefully four teams were formed based on the names of the cities of dwelling of those Bunt’s gathered. They were Coondapore/Brahmavar, Mangalore, Udupi/Puttur & Mulki/Kapu. The rest of the games were played with these teams. We witnessed some great games such as Collecting the names of roads, Passing the rope, Passing the Ball, Passing the T-Shirt, Quiz Sheets, Remembering the photos, two minute game, Miming Game, Guessing the number of chocolates & weight of Water melon etc till noon.
Before the lunch the organizers welcomed the Chief Guest with flower bouquet and a touching speech by the visiting guests. People with pin drop silence heard Gopal Hosur’s speech wherein he disclosed his dangerous encounter with Veerappan a notorious dacoit who was in the most wanted list in the area bordering Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In the year 1993 Gopal Hosur was deputed to catch Veerappan and during the encounter along with his team he was shot by Veerappan with 60 injuries to his body and was left behind thinking dead. But however with the grace of God and with the prayers of those people who loved him, Gopal Hosur was handed over to a doctor called Dr. Nithyanand Shetty who gave him a second life with treatment going on for a period of 6 months and with his wind pipe, food pipe and other viens cut off. It was a miracle for Gopal’s wife who stood by him in his difficult days strongly as stated by Gopal. He also disclosed his close relationship to people of Dakshina Kannada and specially the bunts community at large. Gopal is serving the Police service for over 30 years being born in Belgaum and started his service in Arsikere. He has 2 sons one of who has completed his engineering course and the other one studying in University. He took charge as IGP Mangalore on February, 2009. Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty also spoke some good deeds of Gopal Hosur and his love toward the Dakshina Kannada District and the people. He wished him all success in his new role and hoped that we will soon have a peaceful district with communal harmony.
The afternoon session was really interesting with some creativity games. We witnessed Group Dance Competition, Men from each team dressed with women’s outfit dancing for the tune of a thunderous song which was the main attraction of the day and lastly an advertisement campaign competition all with the same groups formed during the beginning of the session. There were other small games for children who most of the time enjoyed running around the park area enjoying themselves unnoticed by the other crowd.
Finally the day long programme concluded with thanks giving and prize distribution ceremony. The winners were announced and the Udupi/Puttur team won the 1st Prize with Jayaram Rai captain of the team receiving the prize on behalf of his team with thundering applause. The 2nd prize was won by Mangalore Team with Santosh Rai captain of the team who received the prize with his smiling face. Santosh Rai also received the prize for being participating in maximum number of events throughout. One will remember his female dressed dance item which was beautifully presented. Though the other teams did not win they had presented and participated with full strength and vigour which is appreciated. The organizers also thanked Daijiworld for the quick media reports and response every time.
On the whole the total programme was ably handled by Sarvotham Shetty and his team of Red Shirt Organisers whose role were commendable in entertaining and managing the whole event peacefully and enthusiastically. The colourful event concluded at around 6.30 pm.