The story of French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, portrayed in the BBC-Netflix drama The Serpent, is well-known. However, a new Netflix film tells the lesser-known story of an Indian police officer who captured the notorious killer - not once, but twice.
Inspector Zende stars Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpayee in the titular role of the policeman, while actor Jim Sarbh plays Sobhraj, reimagined as Carl Bhojraj. The film unfolds over three weeks in 1986 as the policeman and the criminal play a cat-and-mouse game.
It starts on 16 March that year with Sobhraj escaping from Delhi's high-security Tihar jail, where he had been serving a 12-year prison term since 1976 for murdering a French tourist. Falsely claiming it was his birthday, he feeds drug-laced sweets to the staff and nearly all the prisoners and flees.
A few days later, when he turns up in Mumbai, Inspector Madhukar Zende is called in since he had already arrested him in 1971. The film's release has brought Mr. Zende - who has a cameo in the film as the 'OG', or the original Inspector Zende - back into the headlines in India, decades after he made the arrests.
The retired 88-year-old officer told the BBC that he had arrested many hardened criminals and members of Mumbai's underworld, but it was the notoriety of 'the international criminal Sobhraj' that earned him the reputation of 'a supercop'.
Born to an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother in Saigon, Sobhraj grew up in France where his mother moved after marrying a French soldier. Over the next five years, Sobhraj came to be known as a notorious serial killer, linked to over 20 murders across India, Nepal, and Thailand, often targeting young Western women on the hippie trail in Asia.
His luck ran out in the summer of 1976 when Delhi police arrested him for drugging 40 French university students. A court in India convicted Sobhraj for murdering a French tourist and he was sent to Tihar jail to serve a 12-year term.
Mr. Zende says he found the news of Sobhraj's escape from Tihar in 1986 troubling. 'He was known for using sedatives and had given policemen the slip not only in Delhi but in several other cities around the world. There was no reason for anyone to trust him,' he says.
Two weeks after Sobhraj's jailbreak, Mr. Zende was summoned and asked to hunt for him again. The film mostly narrates the journey of Inspector Zende and his team who then traveled to Goa to catch him.
After combing the bars and beaches, the team received confirmation that Sobhraj was indeed in Goa. They zeroed in on the O'Coqueiro restaurant, which offered affluent foreigners the facility to make quick international calls. On 6 April, while both the hockey match and a wedding were ongoing, Zende recognized Sobhraj instantly when he walked in.
The sensational arrest made Mr. Zende a celebrity. The morning newspapers saluted him with 'Zendabad' - a pun on zindabad, the Urdu word for long live. He received the President's medal for bravery, and his remarkable story is now captured in the Netflix film 'Inspector Zende', rekindling interest in his extraordinary career.
