KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court (SC) has issued an order to release Charles Shovraj Gurumukh and send him back to his country within two weeks.
A division bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha issued the order on Wednesday. “If it is not necessary to imprison him for other cases, he needs to be released and arrangement made to send him back to his home within 15 days,” the order stated, urging the concerned body to send this message to reach the Prison Office through the district court.
In response to a writ petition on a show cause order, the justices mentioned that Shovraj had been 75-years-old and is under medication for heart disease. He has also served 75 percent (19 years) of his jail term. So, it is not reasonable to keep him in prison from the viewpoints of constitution and legal rights, and human rights of prisoners.
The District Court Bhaktapur had issued an order on lifetime imprisonment along with confiscation of all property of the French national Shovraj, called serial bikini killer, in a murder case in 2003.
In his long criminal career, Shovraj has been dubbed ‘the Bikini killer’ because some of his victims were found in bikinis, and ‘the serpent’ for his skill at slipping away from law enforcement authorities.
Shovraj was born in then-French-occupied Saigon, the son of an Indian businessman and a Vietnamese shop assistant. His parents were not married and his father never acknowledged paternity.
Shovraj later moved to France after his mother married a French soldier. It has been written in the many biographies and articles about him that Shovraj resented his father’s abandonment and never settled into his mother’s new family. He took to petty crimes early, moving in and out of jails since his teenage.
Serial killer
As Shovraj travelled across the world, he began targeting “hippie” travellers – Western tourists backpacking through Asia. He would spike their drinks and kill them, often with women accomplices. Shovraj has been accused of around 20 murders, though his motives have never been clear. At times, he stole the passports and used the identities of the people he had killed.
Journalists and law enforcement authorities who interacted with him found Shovraj to be suave and charming, qualities which helped him commit his crimes, recruit accomplices, and also evade punishment. He was arrested several times in several countries, but fled or bribed his way out.
Arrest in India in 1976
In July 1976 in New Delhi, Shovraj and three women accomplices convinced some French students to hire them as tour guides. They then gave the tourists poison pills. However, some of the students managed to call the police and Shovraj and his group were arrested, tried, and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Towards the end of his sentence, Shovraj escaped, by giving prison guards spiked sweets for his “birthday”. He was recaptured, but a BBC article says he “deliberately escaped towards the end of his 10 year jail term in order to be re-captured and face new charges for his escape. That way he could avoid extradition to Thailand where he was wanted for five murders and would almost certainly be given the death penalty. By the time of his release in 1997, the 20 year time-frame for him to be tried in Bangkok had lapsed.”
Arrest in Nepal
After his release from India, Shovraj went back to France. In 2003, he came to Nepal, where he was arrested again. In 2004, he was given life term for killing an American woman, Connie Jo Bronzich, in 1975. Later, he was convicted for killing Bronzich’s American friend, Laurent Carrière.
In 2014, he claimed he had worked as an arms dealer for the Taliban after befriending JeM chief Masood Azhar in Tihar jail, and was even linked with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
He also married Nihita Biswas, who participated in Indian TV show Bigg Boss’s Season 5.
(with inputs from Agencies)
