Kathmandu: Cops Clamp Down on Sobhraj's Free Style 'love' in Jail

Press Trust of India

KATHMANDU, Jul 4: Authorities in Kathmandu's Central Jail in Nepal have clamped down on Charles Sobhraj's free style frolicking with his 20-year-old new love, with whom the celebrity criminal plans to wed after his release.

Sixty-four-year-old Sobhraj has been 'engaged' with Neha alias Nihita Biswas and plans to marry her when he is released from the Nepal prison, where he is languishing since September 2003.

Nicknamed the 'Bikini killer' and 'Serpent', Sobhraj has been accused of luring young women and killing many of them. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a District Court in July 2004 on charges of murdering an American and a Canadian tourist in Kathmandu in 1975.

Meanwhile, the jail administration has "restricted" the open display of love between Sobhraj and his young lover, often in front of prisoners and jail staff. The administration has now forced the "Bikini killer" and his lover to go indoor.

"He can meet people, but there must be some norms that have to be followed," a jail staff said.

A Nepali language daily, Naya Patrika , said Nihita even complained to the Director General of the Jail Management that she had been barred from spending private moments with her lover.

"We have restricted such acts inside the jail but we have allowed Nikita to bring food for him," he was quoted as saying by the Nepali daily.

Nihita, with a Nepali mother and a Bengali father based in Kathmandu, frequently comes to meet Sobhraj, jail officials said.

"The girl every day brings food for him and they share the food together," one of the staff said.

It was love at first sight with Nihita: Sobhraj
 
KATHMANDU: Charles Sobhraj doesn't wear an engagement ring because, as he says, "Standard rings don't fit me." But flexing his fingers behind the meshed partition of the long, narrow room in Kathmandu's Central Jail where prisoners are allowed to meet visitors, Sobhraj says that once he's released, he will go to Paris and buy the finest engagement and wedding rings.

Adding a twist to his dramatic life, the 64-year-old is all set to take the plunge again, this time with a 20-year-old Nepalese stunner Nihita Biswas. It would be his second official marriage. In the 1960s, when he was running a formidable network of passport forgery and other crimes targeting western tourists, he married a chic Parisienne, Chantal Compagnon. He has a daughter from that marriage, who is older than his new fiancee.

Nihita Biswas, the smart and pretty new woman in his life, is 20. Although Sobhraj and Chantal are divorced, they remain friends with Chantal helping him out of Paris with expert advice and other documents that he needs to fight the life term slapped on him by a Kathmandu court four years ago.

Chantal was followed by a French woman of Chinese origin with whom Sobhraj lived after his deportation from India in 1997. The couple had a second daughter, now eight.

Sobhraj's first marriage ended after he came to Kathmandu in 2003 and was arrested by Nepal police, who charged him with the murder of an American tourist in 1975.

Since his arrest, Sobhraj has been behind bars in Nepal. "I did not love her," Sobhraj says of his common law wife. "For me to fall in love, the woman has to be intelligent."

He says it was love at first sight with Nihita, who walked into the prison three months ago to meet him after a mutual acquaintance told her that he was looking for an interpreter for his French lawyer.

Although the lawyer had left Nepal by the time Nihita went down to meet Sobhraj, she made such an impression on him that he wanted to see her again. "So he pretended to have another assignment for me," laughs Nihita. "He gave me a huge shopping list. It was mostly canned stuff."

Undeterred by the presence of curious prison guards and the deafening noise in the visiting room, romance blossomed. Asked how they could have any conversation in that din, she says: "It's simple. I just look into his eyes and read his lips."

Nihita is unfazed by Sobhraj's age, earlier relationships or his criminal background. She has readily accepted Sobhraj's decision that his eight-year-old daughter would live with them.

"I don't know what he was," she says. "What he is now is important. He is a good man, I have seen the way he cares for his family. We have a good relationship." She is confident that Nepal's Supreme Court will acquit him. "He's innocent," she says. "There's no evidence against him."

Sobhraj and Nihita have already exchanged rings and plan to solemnise the marriage after his release. They are also planning to write a new book together, on how they found love in the most daunting circumstances.