The name Sobhraj first caught my attention thanks to the early 80s Mohanlal film of the name. Then we heard about the outlaw's Tihar jailbreak in 1986, aided by his lawyer-lover Sneh Sengar. He was nabbed from Goa by Inspector Madhukar Zende, the same cop who had arrested him 13 years earlier. He deliberately engineered the jailbreak this time to avoid his release which was due. That would have meant extradition to Thailand and execution. Back in Tihar, he continued to make the news. The flamboyant Pritish Nandy who was editing The Illustrated Weekly of India at the time published a story by Charles Sobhraj in it. A writer criminal! - the likes of me wondered. Later when Kiran Bedi was jail IG she provided him with a typewriter. He was to serve ten more years before his release.
Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj was born of an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother in 1944. He had been accused of at least a dozen murders. After his release from Tihar in '97, Sobhraj coolly settled down in Paris and charged TV, film people and publishers huge sums for his biographical accounts. He charged USD 15 million for the rights of a movie on him. But the old instincts raised its head and he made a tourist trip to Katmandu where the law caught up with him for a crime done three decades earlier, the murder of a Canadian tourist. While in jail there (he was now 64) a 20-year-old girl Nihita Biswas declared herself his lover and got engaged to him! She was the last in line of a bevy of women, some highly educated and rich, who fell for the charms of the lady killer (pun very much intended) nicknamed The Serpent.
\Most of his murder victims were backpacker tourists whom he seduced, drugged and killed. Many books have been written about him, like The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj by Julie Clarke & Richard Neville, Serpentine by Thomas Thompson and The Bikini Murders by Farrukh Dhondy. A 2015 Hindi film Main aur Charles narrated his tale through the eyes of Amod Kanth, the cop who handled his case for long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=wOF9MlEOfuE&fbclid=IwAR388UshfOWmMlzSHvhvddnZIWwyC4Vq26nD3mutH4mPCsmVw4MK4eQMk9M
(2015)
Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj was born of an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother in 1944. He had been accused of at least a dozen murders. After his release from Tihar in '97, Sobhraj coolly settled down in Paris and charged TV, film people and publishers huge sums for his biographical accounts. He charged USD 15 million for the rights of a movie on him. But the old instincts raised its head and he made a tourist trip to Katmandu where the law caught up with him for a crime done three decades earlier, the murder of a Canadian tourist. While in jail there (he was now 64) a 20-year-old girl Nihita Biswas declared herself his lover and got engaged to him! She was the last in line of a bevy of women, some highly educated and rich, who fell for the charms of the lady killer (pun very much intended) nicknamed The Serpent.
\Most of his murder victims were backpacker tourists whom he seduced, drugged and killed. Many books have been written about him, like The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj by Julie Clarke & Richard Neville, Serpentine by Thomas Thompson and The Bikini Murders by Farrukh Dhondy. A 2015 Hindi film Main aur Charles narrated his tale through the eyes of Amod Kanth, the cop who handled his case for long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=wOF9MlEOfuE&fbclid=IwAR388UshfOWmMlzSHvhvddnZIWwyC4Vq26nD3mutH4mPCsmVw4MK4eQMk9M
(2015)
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