Free again, what could Charles Shobhraj be up to now?

Amod K Kanth
Dec 22, 2022 | 21:39 IST

Charles Sobhraj is free. The police officer who caught and interrogated him explains how the murderer and conman works the system

Charles Gurumukh Sobhraj has done it again in Nepal jail, proving himself to be a ‘good prisoner’, producing ‘medical papers’ and getting an order from the highest court of the country to be released two years ahead of completing his full 20-year sentence. He has been serving terms for the murders of two tourists, an American and a Canadian, in the mid-1970s.

Ageless charmer; ruthless killer

Born in 1944 to an Indian father and a French mother, Charles, now 78, looks the same as I had found him in April 1986 when I brought him to Delhi in a chartered aircraft amidst media glare following his sensational Tihar jail escape of March 16, 1986. In preparing his dossier while he was in our custody, his modus operandi and character revealed themselves: a crook, confidence trickster and a heartless, ruthless killer targeting those who trusted him, often forming a ‘family bond’ with women friends who mostly did his bidding.
/india
/india-nation
Copyright © 2024 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service.