Some Lesser Known Facts About Nihita Biswas wife of the notorious French serial killer Charles Sobhra

Gaurav Pokharel, Onlinekhabar and Agencies, 27 December 2022:  On October 9, 2008, Charles Sobhraj married 22-year-old Nihita Biswas inside the jail. At 66, Sobhraj fell in love with and married a girl, 44 years younger than him. Yet the jailer did not know about it.

It is not certain when Biswas first met Sobhraj. 

According to Sobhraj’s associates, he had issued an advertisement in the newspaper looking for a Nepali-French translator for his legal battle. And, Biswas, the daughter of his lawyer Shakuntala Biswas, had also applied for the job. Sobhraj chose her as her mother too was a lawyer. Within two weeks of the conversation, they revealed in an interview that they were in love.

Meanwhile, in recent years, Charles Sobhraj was seen struggling with financial issues inside the prison. According to an inmate close to Sobhraj, “Everybody feels like eating something sweet or crave something. But, he did not have money many times.”

Another source claims that as Sobhraj was living a difficult life in prison, Biswas was moving away from his life. After a few years, she stopped going to jail to meet Sobhraj. But, he would keep calling her from jail. Shakuntala Biswas also started visiting less. 

Just three months ago, she shared that she stopped following Charles’s case. “Someone else is looking after his case. You might find something interesting there.”

When Sobhraj got released, a new jacket, shoes and other clothes were bought for him. His family and relatives sent the expenses from France and his lawyers made all the arrangements.

It was the same on Wednesday. Sobhraj had to bring a letter from Bhaktapur District Court to get out of jail. According to the source, Nihita Biswas had told his lawyers that she would go to Bhaktapur and collect the letter. But, she did not show up and said she was busy.

The lawyers went on their own. “If all the procedures could have been wrapped up Thursday, there would not have been any trouble the next day,” says the source, “But only at 1 pm did she inform that she was elsewhere and would not be able to go to Bhaktapur.”

On Thursday, Shakuntala Biswas reached the Central Jail to meet Charles Sobhraj. But, she was not allowed to meet him citing his release. But, Nihita did not reach the jail. On Friday, when Sobhraj was leaving the jail, Nihita reached the immigration department. Sobhraj also reached there, but he expressed that he did not want to meet Nihita or Shakuntala.

Yet, Nihita said she would do whatever she has to do as per the law to get him safely to France. “The important thing now is the security arrangements.” 

At the immigration department, Nihita Biswas did not want to talk openly about her relationship with Charles Sobhraj. She said, “I should not have said much about my life earlier. The media turned a molehill into a mountain.”

She avoided talking about her marriage with Shobraj in prison 12 years ago. “It is all a private matter,” she said. She did not even want to refer to herself as Sobhraj’s wife.

Media and people have always had an interest in her relationship with Sobhraj. But when asked, Nihita Biswas was visibly uncomfortable, “Interests cannot accomplish anything. It is only a matter of curiosity.”

Shakuntala Thapa Biswas

When asked “Are you going to France?”, she avoided answering directly and said, “Cases of other clients including Charles should be treated equally. I have some responsibilities, and I will do everything that needs to be coordinated with the family and the embassy.”

Charles Sobhraj’s first wife Chantal Compagnon and daughter Usha are in Paris. It was a love marriage too. In 1969, he proposed to Compagnon at a party and later, on the same day, he was arrested for stealing a car. They got married eight months after that. They are already divorced. Daughter Usha works for the US government.

When he was in jail, Sobhraj kept in touch with his family members in Paris two to three times a week. But they are not in contact with Sobhraj today. 

Some claim that he has property in France. However, it has not been confirmed.

Charles Sobhraj said that he would now spend the rest of his life, fighting cases against misrepresentation and conspiracy. He spoke about the documentaries made on him too and said he would sue BBC, Netflix and others for making false documentaries about him and claim compensation. While in jail, he had even said, “I will earn money by fighting legal battles for the rest of my life.”

Sobhraj has plans to file a case against the Nepal government too. The bikini killer was arrested at Casino Royale of Kathmandu in 2003. The Bhaktapur District Court had sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murders of American citizen Connie Jo Bronzich and Canadian citizen Laurent Carrière, on December 21, 1975.

Nihita Biswas

Nihita Biswas is a Nepali advocate best known for being the  third wife of the notorious French serial killer Charles Sobhraj,

After marrying Charles in 2008, Nihita made headlines in 2011 when she participated in the Indian reality TV show Bigg Boss season 5.

Like Charles Sobhraj, Nihita is also a product of a mixed marriage. Her father was a Bengali businessman from Kolkata, while her mother Shakuntala Thapa was a well-known Nepali lawyer. Nihita’s parents parted ways when she was a child.

Nihita’s mother represented Charles Sobhraj in the Supreme Court of Nepal; however, she failed to get her client acquitted.

Nihita is well versed in French. Her good hold over the language became the reason for her first meeting with Sobhraj as an interpreter for his visiting French lawyer.

For Shobraj, it was love at the first sight, while Nihita was inclined towards the Frenchman after a few meetings that lasted for around 20 minutes each. They got engaged within three months of their first meet.

Unbothered by 44 years of age difference and her fiance’s criminal record, Nihita tied the nuptial knot with Charles inside the prison walls of Kathmandu jail in 9 October 2008.

Nihita was 21 years old, while Charles was 64  years old when they got married in 2008.

Charles’ Sobhraj’s daughter, Usha, from his first wife, Chantal Compagnon, is around two decades older than Nihita.

It is believed that Usha, along with her mother, is living somewhere in the USA.

Several movies and web series have been made on Charles’ life. Some of these include, “Main Aur Charles,” a Hindi crime drama movie starring Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda as Charles, and “The Serpent,” a web series jointly produced by BBC and Netflix loosely based on real-life crimes committed by Charles.

Marie-Andree Leclerc became Sobhraj’s partner in crime after the two met in Thailand in 1975. She was a medical secretary from Quebec, Canada, and became an accomplice in Sobhraj’s drugging and murder spree.

In 1976, she was arrested alongside Sobhraj in India, although she denied that she had ever taken part in any of Sobhraj’s crimes and hadn’t known that he was murdering people.

Leclerc was also sentenced to life in prison after the attempted drugging and robbery of a group of students in 1976, however this was later overturned following a terminal ovarian cancer diagnosis. She was allowed to return to Canada in 1983, where she died the following year at the age of 38.

Sobhraj has been married multiple times in his life, and is father to three children. He had his first two children with a woman named Chantal Desnoyers, whom he was in a long term relationship with. Desnoyers gave birth to his first child, Prank, in 1964 and, five years later, to their daughter Muriel.

It was actually on the eve of his wedding to Chantal Compagnon in 1969 that his daughter Muriel was born. Together, Sobhraj and Compagnon had their daughter, Usha. 

But, as he got released from the Nepali jail after completing his sentence and was immediately deported to France, it seems his so-called marriage with Nihita Biswas has come to an end. Both of them have expressed in their behaviour that they are no more intimate.