Sobhraj plans to make killing out of Dhondy book

KATHMANDU: Farrukh Dhondy���s new book "The Bikini Murders" is going to make millions. But not for the London-based author and screenplay writer though. For Charles Sobhraj, the reported role model of the book. At least that's what Sobhraj thinks.
"I am going to make millions of euros from that book," Sobhraj says, looking remarkably cheerful in a white woollen cap and thick sweatshirt, despite having spent over a month in Kathmandu's Central Prison -- where he is doing life since 2004 -- without being allowed visitors, including his Nepali fianc��e Nihita Biswas.
On Sunday morning, the 64-year-old, an avaricious reader, was going through the Himalayan Times daily -- which had five years ago been instrumental in getting him arrested and then charged with the murder of an American tourist in 1975 -- when his attention became riveted on a boxed item on page 10.
"Sobhraj JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed) founder's friend: Dhondy", said the headline. The brief report said that Dhondy's new book had been launched on Friday with the author recounting anecdotes about his association with the man once dubbed by the press the Serpent and other lurid monikers for preying on western tourists.
Johnson Thhat, the hero of Dhondy's book, was born in Saigon like Sobhraj. Also like Sobhraj he was caught in a casino in Kathmandu and charged with the murder of an American woman 25 years ago.
"The publishers of the book, Harper Collins, knew I would sue them," Sobhraj told TNN. "That is why it was published in India and not the UK, where they would have to pay substantially higher damages. My lawyers in Paris and Britain are going through the book to decide how to file a libel case."
Sobhraj dismisses Dhondy's reported statements that the latter knew him well. "He was just a middle man who tried to make money by introducing me to film directors," he says. "Through Dhondy I met Shekhar Kappur and Ismail Merchant, both of whom wanted to make films on me. But we could not agree on the contract and so the projects were shelved."
Sobhraj claims that Dhondy then introduced him to Sorab Irani, managing director of SBI Impressario Productions. "I agreed to a film provided it was intended only for India," he says under the hawk eyes of an inspector and other prison guards watching over the conversation. "But as I had stipulated a six-month deadline and as Aamir Khan, who was to have played me, did not have dates free immediately, there was a hitch."
Though the company then proposed Jackie Shroff, even that too did not work out. Meanwhile, Sobhraj says he met both Aamir and Jackie in London.
Sobhraj also says that though he was "badgered" by Dhondy who wanted to write his authorised biography and include his "confessions" in a docudrama, he neither assented to the book nor ever made any confession to the author.
"Whatever Dhondy says about me is collected from media reports," he says. "When an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked from Kathmandu in 1999 and the hijackers demanded the release of Harkat-ul-Ansar general secretary Masood Azhar, the then Indian external affairs minister Jaswant Singh contacted me through Indian journalist Ritu Sarin. I knew Masood since I had been in Tihar jail with him and India wanted me to help secure the release of the hostages.
"After the drama was over, Sarin wrote an article and that's how Dhondy knew about my role in it."