Charles Sobhraj, Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj. Even today, in the world of crime, he is infamous with names like ‘The Serpent’ and ‘Bikini Killer.’ Charles Sobhraj, i.e., ‘The Serpent,’ was a conman, a thug who was proficient in every art of thug science. He used to coil around his prey like a snake, used to trap like a spider in a web of wax words. He was knowledgeable of many languages. This helped him to trap the prey. He liked women, especially foreign women. His easy game easily trapped them. It is said that whatever woman he was determined to trap, he used to make her crazy. In this matter, he never faced failure. People used to fall prey to his compelling personality. He used to give them poison easily and abscond with their valuables.
I had immense hatred for my Indian father.
The ‘Bikini Killer’ is perhaps the most dreaded serial killer ever to lull a victim to death with a silken plot. He committed 12 to 24 murders in the 70s and ’80s, but the secret of how many people he killed is still buried in Sobhraj’s heart. He is the son of an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother, who his father abandoned in childhood. He took his revenge from time immemorial. He hated his father so much that he took the path of crime to defame him. Became the world’s most famous serial killer targeting innocent people, especially women.
Charles, on whose signal the prison doors were closed
Charles Sobhraj used to suffocate his victims in the syrup of his sweetly poisoned personality, but he was infamous in the world of crime for something else. The doors of the world’s prisons used to open automatically in front of him. He used to open even the most substantial prison doors as if they were opened and closed only on Sobhraj’s signal.
The absconding would have been as if the police had given way.
In 1971, Rhodes escaped by jumping from the top floor of the police station. In the same year then, in Bombay, he made an excuse for appendicitis pain and escaped from jail. Again, in 1972, when he was imprisoned in Kabul jail, he made the guards unconscious by feeding them some intoxicant and escaped. Finally, in 1975, he escaped from Aegina Island prison, which was considered very safe in Greece.
The cunning Sobhraj set the police van on fire, took advantage of the chaos and confusion that followed, and escaped. Once, he was caught in Thailand, where he would have been given a conditional death sentence if he had been punished. But he manages to convince the police that they have made a mistake. He is not Sobhraj but an American professor.
However, his absconding from Delhi’s very secure Tihar Jail was the most talked about of all these cases. It was not easy; for this, he also needed the support of a gangster-like Raju Bhatnagar, and the absconding method had to be used in a way that no one had thought of before.
Jugalbandi was famous in Tihar.
On March 16, 1986, Charles Sobhraj escaped from Delhi’s Tihar Jail, which was considered very secure. He was not alone. Three more people had fled with him from Tihar, including Don Raju Bhatnagar’s accomplices, Brij Mohan and Lakshmi Narayan. Vicious Charles carried out his absconding plan so cleverly that two sentries of ‘Tamil Nadu Special Police’ at Gate No. 3 of Tihar were seen lying flat on their stomachs. The one who spews fire.
303 rifle was lying silently next to him towards some poor thing. Six jail officials were lying unconscious inside the jail. Half a kilometer away from there, Warder Anand Swaroop was lying face down with scotch tape over his mouth. It was no less than a scene from a Bollywood film. The jail doors were left open, and the birds had escaped. All were heading towards the desert of Rajasthan. Raju Bhatnagar, using his connections in the world of crime in Delhi, provided all the facilities necessary for Charles Sobhraj to escape.
How did he escape from Tihar?
Charles Sobhraj made a plan to abscond from Tihar very cleverly. Due to his magnetic personality, he used to dominate wherever Charles lived very quickly. He had also come to Tihar to serve his sentence but lived here like a don. Jail officers also used to call him ‘Charles Sahab’ with respect. Taking advantage of his attitude, Charles locked David Hall, a British drug peddler, in Tihar, his disciple. Charles promised to remove David Hall from Tihar.
He taught Hal his trick, using which Charles had been released from jail after vomiting blood on two occasions in the past. Hal did the same. Tihar’s doctor diagnosed kidney failure recently. He was given bail on a bond of Rs 12,000. After leaving Tihar, he did not run away like other foreign drug peddlers but stayed in Delhi. With the help of Raju Bhatnagar, Hal arranged for a car, train tickets, etc., outside the jail. The most important of these were sleeping pills.
On the morning of Sunday, March 16, 1986, David Hall reached Tihar Jail by car carrying grapes, barfi, and petha soaked in 820 sleeping pills. The excuse was to celebrate Charles Sobhraj’s birthday. The amazing thing was that Charles Sobhraj’s birthday did not fall on March 16 but on April 6. Everything was recorded in the jail records, but even senior officers Charles and David came into the limelight. The rest of the work was done by intoxicating grapes, burfi, and petha. Three people, including Charles, David Hall, and Raju Bhatnagar gang’s Brij Mohan and Lakshmi Narayan, dodged Tihar’s security within minutes.
Charles also betrays protégé David
Discussions about Charles Sobhraj’s absconding started happening not only in the country but in the whole world. Security of Tihar, Delhi Police, and everyone got beaten up badly. The most surprising thing was that Charles Sobhraj ran away from jail to return to prison. Two weeks after absconding, Charles and David Hall were arrested from a luxurious restaurant in Goa. David Hall did not know then that Charles himself wanted him arrested.
Charles Shobhraj.
Charles Sobhraj’s sentence was about to be completed in Tihar. After the end of the sentence, he would indeed have been deported to Thailand, where he had been proven guilty in a murder case. There he was sure to be hanged. That’s why Sobhraj deliberately planned to abscond from Tihar so that a new charge would be framed, a new trial would go on, and his life would be safe at the mercy of India’s sluggish judicial system. After being arrested from Goa, Sobhraj and David Hall were kept in adjacent cells, but Hall did not speak to him for years because he had come to know that Charles had used it and thrown it away.
….criminals who became helpers
Don Raju Bhatnagar also became an equal helper along with David Hall in Charles’s escape. Charles Sobhraj’s Ferrari was discussed all over the world. But the surprising thing is that before his absconding, Raju Bhatnagar had also absconded from Tihar, but it was not even discussed. Don Raju Bhatnagar’s absconding is not addressed because his absconding was shameful not only for the Tihar administration but also for the police and the legal process. Therefore, in this case, everyone silently drank a sip of humiliation. Sobhraj had to make many people unconscious, but Raju Bhatnagar only had to hurt his legs. He left Tihar walking on his feet very comfortably…..
