M.D.Riti in Bangalore

Web sites on missing people abound on the Net. However, nobody expected Kannada matinee idol Rajakumar to remain in Veerappan's custody long enough for his abduction to sustain the interest of surfers. Almost 100 days into the abduction, the Web has become a major source of information on the star's plight.

Dr Rajakumar has his official Web site, of course, www.raj-kumar.com, developed and designed by web designer Prakruthi Banwasi and the star's youngest son Puneet Rajakumar, with some inputs from Puneet's IT savvy wife Ashwini. The Web site was put up in the first week of March, and has an excellent photo library of real and reel life pictures of the star. All the information on it has been authenticated by the star or his family, and is hence perfectly accurate.

However, it did not reflect the star's abduction in any manner, not even in a blurb or a headline for some weeks. Now, it has just one section called flash news in which it chronicles the abduction, carries some good pictures of Rajakumar hours before he was kidnapped, 'in the forest now' and so on. There is no attempt to update it daily or provide the latest information on the negotiation or strategy front.

Puneet, who is quite a surfer and Net aficianado, admits that he has been too preoccupied to even access his own personal email accounts, including the one on the Web site. Banwasi says that he cannot carrying abduction news without having checked it out with the family.

The best bet for the latest on the Raja Kumar saga is a site called RajKumar Kidnap @ www.rajkumarkidnap.com. Ironically, the man behind the site's creation, Ramesh Kumar, project manager of Eduquity, a new dotcom based in Bangalore, is not even a Kannadiga. Though he is an admirer of Dr Rajakumar, it was his love for the Internet that motivated him. "I was moved by the distress of his fans over the kidnapping and thought one must acknowledge this through a web site," he says.

He bought this domain name a little over a week into the abduction, thinking that it would be operational for possibly a week or so, within which the star would probably return. After that, he thought he would have to carry analysis and post-abduction features for a fortnight, and then simply keep the site inactive until his money on it ran out. However, the site has stayed active for far longer than he expected.

It does not provide original interviews, but reproduces press clippings from a wide cross section of Net and print publications including Rediff.com. This website gives you a map of Gajanur from where the film star was kidnapped, has quizlets eliciting viewers' opinions on issues related to the kidnap, provides a lot of general data on kidnapping like the Stockholm syndrome. It even has a running news headlines segment, and a lot of pictures of the star and the rioting following his capture.

The very first official acknowledgement of the kidnap on the Net probably came from the Kannada film news portal put up by photographer K M Veeresh of Bangalore. His website www.chitraloka.com carried a flash that recorded the abduction, but did not carry anything more on this at all during those first tense 72 hours of the abduction. Veeresh says he had problems with software, uploading as well as demands on his personal time and work, which is film photography for Kannada film magazines and newspapers.

Now, this site probably carries breaking news on the kidnap from a Kannada film industry insider perspective. Veeresh has moved on, with the rest of the industry, to focussing on other film-related issues, but the kidnap still remains prominently covered. There are original interviews with the two abductees who returned, balanced and informed speculation on what might happen next. Veeresh now updates his edition every day and has his own dedicated band of readers.

Yet another newly launched Kannada film website, www.kannadamovies.com, does not reflect the abduction in any manner whatsoever. This website, launched by a company called Pals Information Systems from Mysore, does have a section on Rajakumar, but only on his filmography, not on his plight.