Deported Charles Sobhraj will go back to crime: Supercop

BENGALURU: “Hello Charles!” “Charles? Who? Are you crazy? I am not Charles.” “You remember I had arrested you in 1971. Your game is up, Charles!” These are the famous lines that could turn a crime thriller into a box office hit. Fifteen minutes after Charles Sobhraj - the international criminal - walked into the O’Coqueiro restaurant in Porvorim at 10.30 pm on April 6, 1986, his game was up. His nemesis, the then senior police inspector, Agripada police station, Mumbai, Madhukar Zende had pinned him down and tied him. His men, in mufti, by then had emptied Charles’ revolver. The police recovered $10,000 bills from Charles’ shoes.

“I told the constables in the escort team to not move out of the vehicle or allow Charles to step out even to attend nature’s call. I had given two empty tins to them for the purpose. They were to take the crook to Mumbai where a special aircraft was sent by the Delhi police to take him to Delhi,” reminisced Zende, now 85, and settled in Singapore.

This was the second time that Zende had arrested Sobhraj after November 1971, when the latter had planned to execute a heist at the Air India cash counter office in the New India Assurance building near Flora Fountain in Mumbai. On a tip-off from a petty thief Ajay Parekh, Zende, who was then an inspector at Gamdevi police station, Mumbai, had arrested him.

“Charles had checked in at the Taj Hotel and his five to six accomplices in different hotels. They had planned to rob the AI cash counter office, when I arrested him near the Taj Hotel on November 11, 1971. We recovered receipts of the hotels where his accomplices were lodged, arrested them and recovered a lot of weapons,” said the retired supercop. P10