The man who caught Charles Sobraj twice and now is the hero of Netflix

The story of the French serial killer Charles Sobraj, depicted in the drama of the BBC-Netflix the Serpent, is well known.

Now, a new Netflix movie says to the less famous The story of an Indian police officer who captured the notorious killer – not once, but twice.

Inspector Zende stars Bollywood actor Manoi Byepay in the titular role of the police officer, while actor Jim Sarb plays Sobhraj – restored as Carl Bitzhgjj.

The film unfolded for three weeks in 1986 as a police officer and a criminal played a game of cats and mice.

Warning: Spoilers below for the Netflix movie

It began on March 16, the same year, when Sobraj escaped from Delhi’s high security prison, where he served a 12-year prison since 1976 for the murder of a French tourist.

He incorrectly claims that this is his birthday, he feeds staff drugs and almost all prisoners and runs.

A few days later, when he appeared in Mumbai, Inspector Madhukar Zende summoned as he already arrested him in 1971.

The film’s edition has led to Zende – who has Cameo in the movie as “OG” or the original Inspector Zende – back to the titles in India, decades after making arrests.

I spoke to Zende, and read his most recent book Mumbai, most wants to gather the story of Sobraj’s arrest.

The retired 88-year-old officer told the BBC that he had arrested many hardened criminals and members of the Mumbai Underworld, but it was the fame of the “Sobraj International Crime” that he had the reputation of Supercop.

Born an Indian father and Vietnamese mother in Saigon, Sobraj grew up in France, where his mother moved after marrying a French soldier.

He was little known when he first struck the titles in India in 1970 for a bold hat at a jewelry store in Ashok, a five -star hotel in Delhi.

When Inspector Zende captured him a year later in Mumbai, urban documents define him as “another feather in the Mumbai police hat”.

Sobhraj was handed over to the police in Delhi, who used to use jewelry, but within days he escaped by boarding a bath tub in a hospital where he was admitted after complaining of pain in the application.

Over the next five years, Sobhraj became known as the notorious serial killer and was associated with more than 20 murders in India, Nepal and Thailand, in which the victims were drugged, strangled, beaten or burned.

For his skill of deceptive masking and the ability to escape from prison, he was called the “snake” – later became the title for the hit BBC and Netflix Series About the Killer, which was released in 2020.

Another name that lingered was the “bikini killer” because of his tendency to focus on young Western women along the hippie path in Asia. Interpol issued a red corner notice against him and the police in dozens of countries were looking for him.

His luck expired in the summer of 1976, when police in Delhi arrested him for drugs 40 students from French University and tried to rob them in the Indian capital.

A court in India has also condemned Sobraj for the murder of a French tourist at a hotel in Mumbai and he was sent to Tihar prison to serve a 12-year term.

Zende says he found the news of Sobraj’s escape from Tihar in 1986. “Anxious.”

“He was known for using sedatives and giving the police officers not only in Delhi, but also in several other cities around the world. There was no reason to trust him,” he says.

Two weeks after the Jailbrese of Sobraj, D -N -Zende was called by his boss – “He remembered that I had once caught the killer of the bikini – and asked to hunt him again.

Netflix’s new movie is most telling the story of Inspector Zende and his team, who then travel to Goa to catch him.

The task, he writes in the book, was exciting for a number of reasons.

Up the list was the ability to recharge Sobhraj. But it was also the first time he would fly and stay at a five -star hotel. The prospect of eating seafood and the famous Alphonso mango added to the excitement.

After days spent at the meeting of bars and beaches, Zende claims that the team had received confirmation that Sobraj was indeed in Goa. They then joined the O’Coqueiro Restaurant at Porvorim, the only place offered by wealthy foreigners the facility to make quick international calls.

“We suspected that he was in Goa to take a boat to the United States, where his wife lived and would call her from O’Cocairo,” he said.

On April 6, the team reached the restaurant early and took positions. In the evening there was a hockey match in India-Pakistan, which was shown live on television and a wedding of the place.

“By 20:00 and the hockey match and the wedding were in full swing. Around 10:30 pm, when Sobhraj entered, I recognized it instantly,” Zende writes. “The 10 years, when I didn’t see it, they dropped out for a moment.”

The sensational arrest has made a celebrity. Morning newspapers greet him on “Zendabad” – Zindabad’s pun, the word Urdu for a long time.

He was on magazine covers, was profitable by the largest actors and singers in Bollywood, who asked him for his autograph, the Federal Minister of the Home flew from Delhi to meet him and he received the president’s medal for courage.

However, the best recognition came from d’coqeiro – a Zende Platter It costs 2500 rupees ($ 28; £ 21) and serves six.

In the meantime, Sobraj returned to prison, where he spent another decade.

Later, he claims that his escape is a pledge to extend his sentence and to avoid extradition to Thailand, where he was wanted for five more murders and will certainly receive the death penalty.

After his release in 1997, he returned to France, where he lived in Paris and gave paid interviews to journalists.

In 2003, he returned to Nepal and was arrested and spent 19 years in prison there for the killings of an American since 1975 of an American and Canadian. In 2022 the court released him for his age and good behavior and he was deported to France.

I ask G -n Zende if he still holds Sobhraj tabs today.

“He served his sentence. He is already 81 years old. I am no longer worried about him,” he says.