love at first sight or love at first flight? Hehehe...

Shobrajs' jailhouse love blooms with 20-yr-old Nepali girl

Sometimes love seems to even melt solid prison bars, or pretty much something like that has happened with the notorious serial-killer Charles Shobraj who is serving a life sentence in Kathmandu's Central jail from the past five years for murdering American Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975.

Charles Shobraj (File Photo)

Of all the thing, Shobraj, 64, also known as the "serpent" after being suspected of murdering over 20 backpackers in different countries, has now found a new love in a 20-year-old Nepali girl, and the prison bars that separate the two hasn't deterred them from exchanging engagement rings and planning to marry.

Shobraj first met Nihita Biswas, a daughter of a Bengali man from Kolkata and a Nepali career woman, three months ago at the Central jail, and it was love at first sight.

Nihita, who aspires to become a journalist, arrived at the prison to work as a interpreter for Shobraj's French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre who was arriving in Kathmandu from Paris to inspect the status of their appeal against the life term. But as fate would have it, she instead fell in love with Shobraj.

The feelings were mutual and though he no longer needed an interpreter, Sobhraj did not want to lose sight of her and pretended he had an assignment for her.

"He gave me a list of things he wanted me to buy for him," Nihita laughs while recounting her first encounter with the man dubbed as the "bikini killer" to Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). "It was an enormous list."

Then she started to visit him regularly, and soon their jail romance bloomed. Nihita has already told her mother about their romance and has also taken her to the prison to meet her future son-in-law as the couple plan to marry. And surprisingly, Nihita's mother is quite approving of her choice of bridegroom.

"I am a human rights activist," Nihita's mother told IANS. "I think Sobhraj was sent to prison without any evidence to prove he had committed the murder. He was convicted by the media that made a mountain out of a molehill. My daughter is an adult and free to decide whom to marry. If she is happy then I am happy too."

Shobraj and Nihita have exchanged rings and become engaged. But their plans for marriage will only materialize if his appeal against the "guilty" verdict will be overturned by Nepal's Supreme Court and he will be released this year.

"I don't know what he was," Nihita says when asked if she isn't bothered by her fiancée's past criminal record. "But I know what he is now. He is a good and caring man and that's what's important." nepalnews.com ag July 03 08