I was winding up my work in our newspaper office in Panjim on a Sunday evening when I attended a telephone call. A newspaper reader wanted to know about the frantic activity going around in Porvorim near Panjim. As a crime reporter of The Navhind Times, I asked the caller some details related to his query and assured him to check what was happening there. Then, I made a quick call to the police control room and was relaxed when I got the stock reply, "सोगळे शांत असा, काय गडबड ना!” (No major crimes, all is well!)
That was one of the first and also the most casual calls on the office landline I received on that Sunday late evening, 6 April 1986.
It was past 8.30 pm. In 1970s and early 1980s, there was almost no life on streets in Panjim, capital of Goa, Daman and Diu after 7 pm on weekdays , and Sundays and public holidays, would be even worse. A person informing about something abnormal happening on Panjim-Mapusa route on Sunday evening therefore rang an alarming bell in me, a crime reporter. I immediately rang up to the police control room, Number 100, to know what was happening in Porvorim.. ‘Kay Na’ prompt came the reply and I was assured.
I rang up a police inspector but he too said there was nothing to report. Within half an hour, I had received more calls.
Those days there was a single road for the most stretch of the Panjim-Mapusa route and therefore many people on the move had noticed that something was cooking at a particular site.
By 9 p.m, there were many such calls, each phone call prompting me to ring up higher police officials and different police stations to verify if something strange or major incident was taking place at the site. Thus I had called Mapusa police station, press relations officer of the Goa Police and many others and each verification call had drawn a blank.
The calls of our newspaper readers really irritated me. It was Sunday and normally I did not stay in the office so late. The deadline for filing stories for us reporters was 7.30 pm, maximum 8 pm by which time our Assistant Editor M. M. Mudaliar would clear stories, mark their pages, and leave for home. Only stories meant for the page one were accepted after that and they were cleared by Editor Bikram Vohra when the night chief sub-editor along with page one copies went in a office jeep to his Miramar residence at around 9 pm. There was a reason why I was hanging around so late in the newspaper office that Sunday night.
With Mudaliar’s prior permission, that evening I had booked urgent calls to Delhi headquarters of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) to confirm about my journalism diploma course in Bulgaria and a visit to Russia. Those days, the BSNL had ordinary, urgent and lightening categories for local and outstation calls. After the urgent call materialised after two hours waiting, IFWJ president K. Vikram Rao had asked me to fly to New Delhi the very next day as I, along with other journalists, were to fly to Moscow within a week. With this excitement of my foreign tour, now I was troubled with these telephone calls about some strange happenings in Porvorim. Was someone playing a prank, I wondered.
Soon, I got another call. This time the caller was more specific. Has the police caught a big fish near Porvorim, he asked. That was an alarm bell for the crime reporter in me. I rang up the senior most police, Goa inspector general of police. I apologised to him for calling on Sunday at this night hour and asked him if there was any major arrest or happening near Porvorim. I felt assured when he replied in the negative. But when there was no end to inquisitive telephone callers and there seemed no possibility if prank calls, I once again called the Goa IGP with more profound apologies. This time, the IGP did not hide his annoyance. “Camil, you know it too well, If there is anything major, or arrest of a big fish, I will be the first person to know it,” he said, again denying that any major happening was taking place at that moment in Porvorim.
Normally, such reply from the top cop would have been final. But this time I did not feel assured. Was the IGP hiding the news for the time being? I wondered.
Jovita Lopes, our sports reporter, who was typing his stories on typewriter had his ears all tuned to my local telephone conversation, the repeated phone calls and my efforts to verify the callers’ claims. Soft-spoken Jovito who was also a school teacher was much senior to me in journalism. The night chief sub had already left with a compiled bunch of stories of national news agencies and reporters for the editor’s residence. After I had ended my second telephone call to the IGP, Jovito filed his last sport story, asked the peon to send it for Linotype setting and he turned to me and said. : Camil, there is really something big cooking up there in Porvorim. Let’s now waste time. Let’s move to that spot even if it it late night!”
Hurriedly, both of us climbed down the wooden steps of our one-storeyed tiled roof building and Jovito took out his scooter. In a few minutes, we had crossed both the Pato and Mandovi bridges and 10 minutes later arrived at O Coqueiro hotel in Porvorim, which had figured in some of those telephone calls. Some people who were on the road outside the hotel told us that the `centre of action’ had moved from O Coqueiro to Mapusa. Without wasting a moment, Jovito sped away his scooter. Soon we had arrived near the bust of Mahatma Gandhi, in Mapusa and now there was no need to ask anyone the direction .
There was huge crowd at the Hotel Residency, the hotel of the Goa Tourism Department Corporation located just opposite Mapusa bus stand. Jovito and I realised that a major event was indeed unfolding there. The crowd was watching as a group of persons with strong physique made hurried movements from the hotel to the private taxis parked there. There was no guessing that these plains clothed people were police personnel. There were obviously in hurry to leave the place as early as possible and none of them were interested in talking to anyone, let alone presspersons. I had noted that a few journalists from other newspapers in Goa were already at the spot before us !
I held my breath as I saw what was happening before my eyes and learnt what had taken place. Jovito, a seasoned journalist, had managed to speak to some those persons and the gathered bits of information was just shocking : The plain clothed persons we were watching getting their bags into the waiting taxis were Mumbai Police personnel and they had just succeeded in recapturing a most wanted international criminal, Charles Sobhraj. The serial killer had escaped some weeks back from India’s most high security Tihar Central Prison. The daredevil team of Mumbai police had been on the trail of the fugitive for a few weeks.
What we gathered from the action spot was that the Mumbai police team headed by Madhukar Zende had nabbed Charles Sobhraj perhaps an hour before at O Coqueiro hotel in Porvorim. The Mumbai police had for most obvious reasons not given any clues to the Goa police about the big fish they had in their net. That explained why even Goa’s top cop, the inspector general of police - was not aware of what was going on right under his nose in this tiny territory.
The Mumbai police team was in a hurry to leave for Mumbai along with their most prized cash. As a reporter who visited everyday Panjim police station and also the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court everyday, I understood the need and hurry of the Mumbai police team in rushing out of this Goa at this late night hour. The notorious criminal they had just nabbed had to be produced in a court within 24 hours after the declared time of his arrest. Obviously they were not interested in producing their prized catch in a court in Goa and thus make Goa Police a party to their extraordinary success of arrest of the fugitive criminal.
The Mumbai Police team which was on a long hunt to locate the whereabouts of Charles Sobhraj had been going in cognito during these days. They did not even have their official cars and were now leaving for their headquarters in Mumbai in private hired taxis.
Jovito and I were at the ground before Hotel Residency not more than 10 minutes. We watched in awe as the six to seven taxis – Charles Sobhraj was bundled off on one of them – sped away one by one before our eyes towards Altinho and then straight to Mumbai.
A few seconds later, Jovito and I rushed to his scooter and we too sped away in opposite direction –to Panjim - and to inform our boss the most prized catch in our booty which we had to file at this hour which was beyond our newspaper deadline.
Immediately on arrival at the newspaper office, Jovito rang up editor Bikram Vohra to inform him of our story. The editor in turn spoke to the night chief sub and asked him to accommodate the late story and thus delay the next day’s newspaper printing. By this time, Jovito had been banging speedily the typewriter keys with his one finger typing. Ten minutes later, the chief sub-editor had a quick look at the one and half pages news copy and sent it to ground floor for linotype setting. I had not much role in this.
The next day, The Navhind Times carried a front page eight columns news with a joint byline ‘Jovito Lopes and Camil Parkhe’, announcing recapture of Interpol-wanted criminal Charles Sobhraj. No, it was not a scoop for The Navhind Times. A few other dailies in Goa had also carried the news in that day’s edition. The national dailies however missed the news of late night capture of one of the world’s most celebrated criminal.
Thanks to the alertness of sports reporter Jovito Lopes, I, a crime reporter was saved from the huge shame and lifelong embarrassment of missing a major, international story of re-arrest of Sobhraj.
The Mumbai police left Goa with their prized collection just before the midnight. No, no, there was no encounter after the police team entered Maharashtra borders. Mumbai police in 1970s and 1980s was regarded the best in investigation and dedication in the whole world, next only to the Scotland Police. After reaching their headquarters, Mumbai police proudly announced to the world that they had captured Charles Sobhraj and the news was carried the next day in all national dailies.
Post script
The day The Navhind Times carried news of arrest of Charles Sobhraj, I flew to New Delhi. I had carried the NT newspaper copies with me. I stayed with Mr. Padmnabhan, Special Correspondent of The Hindu in New Delhi, whose son, also a Hindu reporter in Chennai, was to attend journalism course along with me in Bulgaria. The newspaper clipping impressed Mr Padmanabhan who the very next day arranged my interaction with some New reporters in connection with the arrest of Charles Sobhraj. I too became a celebrity, basking in the reflected glory of the celebrity criminal !!!.
Charles Sobhraj who was released after serving his term in Indian prison later lived in France. Presently he has been serving a prison sentence in Nepal for another crime he committed in that country.
By the way, Madhukar Zende, leader of the Mumbai police team, who nabbed Charles Sobhraj and who post-retirement is now settled in Katraj in Pune does not believe that capturing Sobhraj was his most extraordinary achievement in his career. There are other more significant cases investigated and handled by him, he says.
Nishikant Anant Bhalerao has replied to my Facebook post...
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