Nepal’s police is still searching for an Indian, believed to have been the serial killer Charles Sobhraj's partner in crime.
KATHMANDU: While serial killer Charles Sobhraj, caught and slapped with life imprisonment in Nepal for murder, has begun a legal fight to get his sentence overturned, Nepal’s police are still searching for an Indian, believed to have been the Frenchman’s partner in crime.
Ajay Chowdhury, a former resident of New Delhi, was allegedly Sobhraj’s trusted lieutenant in the 70s, helping him commit a series of murders, robberies and passport thefts, according to the Nepal police and Interpol. Chowdhury is also suspected of burning the victims’ bodies to prevent quick identification.
According to Interpol, in December 1975, Sobhraj and Canadian Marie-Andree Leclerc, who was his mistress as well as second accomplice, came to Kathmandu from Bangkok, where they had set up base. In Bangkok, Sobhraj and his partners killed Dutch tourist Henricus Bintanja and his girlfriend Cornelia Hemker. Then Sobhraj and Leclerc used the victims’ passports to arrive in Kathmandu.
According to the Nepal police, Sobhraj befriended American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich and her companion Canadian Laurent Carriere in Kathmandu, killed both.
Chowdhury was also in Kathmandu at that time. He is also believed to have been involved in the double murder. “After the discovery of the bodies, we traced Chowdhury to a hotel in Kathmandu,” says Bishwa Lal Shrestha, who was the police officer investigating the case in 1975. “But he gave us the slip.”
The trio — Sobhraj, Leclerc and Chowdhury — left Nepal by land to go to Varanasi, where they continued with murders and robberies. Sobhraj’s luck ran out in 1976 when both he and Leclerc were arrested and sent to jail. She agreed to testify against him, was paroled and deported to Canada. However, despite Delhi Police’s attempts to nab him, Chowdhury remained at large.
According to a book published on Sobhraj, in 1976 the three had gone to Malaysia where Chowdhury was sent on an errand to collect gems from a mining town. When he returned, the two men went into a jungle but only Sobhraj returned. Shrestha, however, discounts the theory that Sobhraj. murdered Chowdhury. When the case file was reopened in Nepal in 2003 following Sobhraj’s arrest in Kathmandu, the police once again began a lookout for Chowdhury.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}