Manoj Bajpayee will soon be seen essaying the role of Madhukar Zende in Netflix’s upcoming crime-comedy Inspector Zende, centred on the Mumbai cop who caught manipulative serial killer Charles Sobhraj not once but twice. The criminal, however, is named Car Bhojraj in the film and is played by Jim Sarbh.
But who was Zende? What makes his story intriguing enough to warrant a Netflix film?
First arrest
In 1971 Zende was posted at the Gamdevi police station when Ajay Parekh, a petty thief, tipped him off that Sobhraj and crew were planning a heist at the New India Assurance building in South Mumbai, which saw a daily inflow of Rs 1-2 crore in cash at the time. Only a month before that, Sobhraj had duped a jeweller in a Delhi five-star. In an earlier interview with The Times of India, Zende had shared that he and his team were staying at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace. “On November 11, 1971, Sobhraj came in wearing a suit. We caught him. We interrogated him for a long time. We found rifles and revolvers,” Zende had said. Later that year, Sobhraj complained of infected appendicitis. The cops admitted him to a hospital and taking advantage of a blackout because of the Indo-Pak war, the Bikini killer escaped, by climbing down drain pipes.
Close encounters of the second-kind
Sobhraj was arrested again in 1976 and sent to Tihar jail. His term was for 12 years but he managed to escape in 1986. Mumbai Police had information that the Serpent (as he was named by many media outlets) was lurking in Goa and as Zende had arrested him once before, he was put to the task.
On April 3, 1986 Zende landed in Goa along with a small police team. The cop got the first lead about Sobhraj from a hotel owner in Mumbai, who had kept the fake number plates of bikes used by him. Another major lead came from telephone exchanges in Goa as in the 1980s international calls used to be made through the exchanges and Sobhraj used to talk to his wife from a Goa restaurant.
This landed Zende and team to O’Coqueiro in Porvorim, a restaurant frequented by several foreign tourists as it had a phone with an ISD connection. “I was confident that if I spent enough time at the restaurant, I would bump into Charles Sobhraj as he loved his food and women. I would sit by a table everyday acting like a tourist on a long holiday until the night of April 6,” Zende had said in an earlier interview.
Around 10.30 pm on Sunday, April 6, two men in black hats walked out of a Premier Padmini car and entered the hotel. They took a seat in its verandah. Zende got up, rushed to Sobhraj's table, grabbed his arm and said: “Hello Charles, how are you?” He asked Zende if he was mad but the cop reminded him that he had nabbed him in 1971. Sobhraj whipped out his foreign-made revolver but the cops were quick to overpower him.
Since then, O’Coqueiro has gathered a reputation that goes beyond its fish thali. There is a Sobhraj statue at the table where he was caught. The menu also has a Zende platter, comprising tandoori chicken and lamb.
Other accolades
But it wasn’t just Sobhraj. Zende’s book, Mumbai’s Most Wanted also details other accomplishments of the Mumbai cop. How he managed violent crowds in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition or how he arrested smuggler and gangster Haji Mastan for assaulting a policeman.
It would be interesting to see Zende’s life and work being portrayed on celluloid. Inspector Zende, has been written and directed by Chinmay Mandlekar. It also features Sachin Khedekar, Bhalchandra Kadam, Harish Dudhade, Onkar Raut, Bharat Savale, Nitin Bhajan, Girija Oak and Vaibhav Mangale in pivotal roles.
The film will premiere on Netflix on September 5.
