Charles Sobhraj's arrest from Goa restaurant in 1986 looked like film shoot: Eyewitness

Armando Gonsalves still remembers the evening of April 6, 1986 when the then Mumbai Crime Branch inspector Madhukar Zende brandished a gun to nab serial killer Charles Shobhraj, who was sitting on an adjacent table in a restaurant at Porvorim in Goa. Everything was normal and the O'Coqueiro restaurant was packed with customers. "A wedding function was under way at the other side of the restaurant. I was enjoying drinks and dinner with my friend Auspicio Rodrigues when the incident happened,” local businessman Gonsalves told PTI, recalling the time when Sobhraj was arrested in Goa by the Mumbai Crime Branch team.

"For a few moments, I thought it was a movie shoot," he said. Thirty six years down the line, the restaurant still continues to serve people and is famous as the place where Sobhraj was arrested. The eatery's management has put up a statue of Sobhraj in a corner of the place, which has now become a selfie point for tourists and visitors. Nepal's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of 78-year-old Sobhraj, a Frenchman of Indian and Vietnamese parentage who has been in jail since 2003 on murder charges.

Nicknamed "the Bikini Killer" and "the Serpent" due to his skill at deception and evasion, Sobhraj was serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of American woman Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975 in Nepal. In 2014, he was convicted of killing Laurent Carriere, a Canadian backpacker, and given a second life sentence. A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail. Gonsalves remembered that a foreigner, David Hall, who was later identified as a drug peddler, was sitting on a table next to them, and Sobhraj had joined him.

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“None of us knew what exactly was happening. For a few moments, I thought it was a movie shooting. We later realised the seriousness of the moment,” he said. Sobhraj and his partner had given up without a fight, but police were not in a mood to take any chance so they started searching for a rope to tie him to the chair, Gonsalves said. “I along with my friend rushed to the kitchen and got a rope using which Sobhraj was tied down. Later, he was taken in a car and police drove to Mapusa town, located six km from Porvorim,” he recalled.

The police later took a break for dinner at a place owned by the tourism department in Mapusa where Sobhraj continued to be tied with the rope, Gonsalves said. "We went on our scooter till Mapusa along with the car," Auspicio Rodrigues remembered, adding that Goa Police had not come to the scene till then. Gonsalves and Rodrigues then went on their scooter to accompany police till the state border with Maharashtra.

Retired photojournalist Sunil Naik also recalled how he had rushed to the restaurant with his camera after getting information about Sobhraj's arrest. “By the time I reached there, police had already taken away Charles Sobhraj. I recorded a video of the place where he was arrested and sent the tape to Mumbai the next day,” said Naik, who was then freelancing for public broadcaster Doordarshan from Goa.

"A Doordarshan team in Mumbai was waiting for the tape as it had to be aired immediately. Doordarshan later broke the news and that was the time when Parliament was in session,” he said. Back to the current times, O'Coqueiro is famous among visitors due to the statue of Charles Sobhraj. “We plan to put up another statue of the then inspector Madhukar Zende at the restaurant,” said Shekhar Diwadkar, general manager of the Alcon Anil Counto Enterprise, a hotel group which took over O'Coqueiro since 1998. Diwadkar said the restaurant has been a talking point because of the arrest of Sobhraj at the eatery.

"The statue is a selfie point right now and visitors are curious to know about the 1986 incident,” he said.