Charles Sobharaj always had a knack for seducing women. Charles, who was in prison even after being recognized as a felon, got new girlfriends through love marriages twice. Charles became known as the ‘Bikini Killer’ because of the murders he pretended to be in love. At the end of the 1960s, Charles started a series of murders by ensnaring foreign tourists who had caught the hippie culture. Before reaching India, the first stop was Pattaya, a tourist center in Thailand. A handsome French young man who started as a friend and became intimate with drugs.
Early 1970s. At that time, foreigners were continuously killed on the beach of Pattaya. Police checked their hotel room and found a similarity. All foreign currencies and passports were stolen. One of the slain girls has been identified as Stephanie Shalman Caru. 21 years old. A French girl named Stéphanie went in search of her Jewish lover who had gone missing in Thailand a few weeks ago. Stephanie’s death followed the murder of that young Jewish man named Vitaly Hakim.
The police sought the help of Interpol to find the killer. Interpol inspector John Imhof, who studied the case, noticed a rare thing in the pictures of the two dead women: a one-size-fits-all cut of cloth was cut out in a circle around Stephanie’s breast.
Months ago, the police found the body of another bikini-clad woman entangled in bait – an American named Teresa Knowlton. There too, the cloth was cut in a circular shape in one rupee size.
Interpol found the face of a psychotic killer behind both the deaths. During this time, 12 foreign tourists have been killed in Thailand and Nepal. Everyone’s passports have also been stolen. The search extended to the killer who traveled the world in disguise. The notorious international killer was finally arrested by the Delhi Police; It was Hatchand Banoni Gurumukh Charles Sobharaj.
An unofficial estimate is that Charles Sobharaj has committed more than thirty murders. The case went nowhere due to lack of evidence. Sobharaj used to find his victims at a time when there were no modern communication systems like today. Travelers on long journeys who often do not reach home are caught in the net.
Sobharaj created another empire in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Shobharaj blackmailed the jail staff by recording the conversations through a tape recorder he kept in his pocket. Sunil Gupta, who was then superintendent, later wrote about Sobharaj, who used to smoke cigarettes in a suit and coat on the prison premises. The superintendent thought that some VIP had come to visit the prison at first sight. Money was freely given to those who needed it.
Books on the Constitution and the Indian Judiciary and Sidney Sheldon’s fiction were discarded. Sobharaj, who can make anyone fall under the spell, gave legal advice to his fellow inmates in the jail. Scotch and beer were brought and drunk by taking over the canteen. In 1986, a prison break was attempted by drugging inmates, but it failed. Soon he was arrested in Goa. But Tihar was Sobharaj’s home for two decades. Sobharaj never regretted his mistakes.
It is a mystery that Sobharaj, who was exiled to France after his release from prison, reached Kathmandu again. There, the police arrested him from a gambling center called Yak and Yeti. In Nepal in 1975, 2 American-Canadian women were arrested in the case of killing and burning their dead bodies. The news in Nepal’s English newspaper, Himalayan Times, that Sobharaj had crossed into Nepal helped to catch Sobharaj. Journalist Richard Neville has written a book on Sobharaj’s criminal career. Later Netflix turned it into a web series called ‘Serpent’. I couldn’t sleep after reading the book. Some of the audience then asked if we should watch this series too.
In Sathyan Anthikad’s film ‘Sanmanassullawark Panadanam’, Charles Sobharaj is a name that has become a part of the Malayali’s laughter as well, when Tilakan’s character Damodarji Mohanlal is joined by Mohanlal’s character Damodarji, who burst out laughing when he said, “I have seen more courage than this, Charles Sobharaj, Weldon my boy”. A name that has broken the peace of many people.
English Summary: Serial killer Charles Sobharaj