Forest brigand Veerappan’s elder brother Koosa Matheyan was among the last members of a family that was both criticised and celebrated by sections of people in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka for over two decades. On Wednesday, the 76-year-old died of cardiac arrest at the Salem Government Hospital. His last rites were held at Moolakkad, next to Veerappan’s grave.

He had been serving a life sentence at the Salem Central Prison for over 30 years.

At the family’s native village Chengapadi (also known as Gopi Natham in Kannada), a close relative said Matheyan was convicted for crimes “he never committed” and that “he was being punished by an angry State as they couldn’t catch his younger brother.”

But the relative admitted that “by running kangaroo courts” and committing “other similar acts” in his 20s, Matheyan “gave legitimacy to Veerappan’s crimes.”

Matheyan was sentenced to life in November 1997 after a long trial that began in 1991, but he maintained that he was handed out disproportionate punishment for being the elder brother of Veerappan. The sandalwood smuggler was killed in October 2004 by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments in a joint operation that stretched for many years and cost the two states crores of funds.

Matheyan had been admitted at the Salem hospital since the first week of May and had been fighting for remission of his sentence to spend time with his wife Mariammal, 65, and two daughters.

His first arrest was connected to the killing of five of Veerappan’s rivals in 1989 and he was lodged in a Mysore prison after that. His name was also added to the FIR in the 1987 sensational murder case of forest range officer Chidambaram. He was the accused No. 10 in the case.

He was then taken into custody by Tamil Nadu police in 1991 and then sentenced to life in November 1997.

Amburaj was kidnapped by Veerappan at the age of 16 and went on to live like ‘Veerappan’s aide’ in the forest for almost 18 months before he was arrested. He then spent another 18 years in prison. On Wednesday, the 42-year-old said that his last meeting with Matheyan was on May 7.

“He had a hope that the DMK government would release him on humanitarian grounds. But Matheyan was not Perarivalan. No one heard him outside his cell and his case did not elicit popular sympathy either,” said Amburaj, who was released from prison in 2016.

P Nedumaran, a veteran Congress leader and face of the Tamil nationalist movement in the 1980s and 1990s, was instrumental in securing the release of Kannada superstar Rajkumar from Veerappan in 2000. The 89-year-old recalled how during negotiations when Veerappan sought the release of several convicts from prison, Matheyan’s name was not on the list.

“When I asked him why he did not seek Matheyan’s release, Veerappan said that his brother was convicted in cases because the State cannot arrest him, and that if he sought his release, it would appear that he was doing it for his own family. After I returned from the forest, I raised the issue with the government but he wasn’t given any reprieve,” Nedumaran said.