By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : Though their romance landed criminal mastermind Charles Sobhraj, 64, and his 20-year-old fiancée Nihita Biswa in a raging controversy, it has proved to be a golden goose for a bunch of enterprising techies.
Terrestrial Holdings, a Florida-based company that specialises in providing domains, has put up the first website on Nihita.
www.nihitabiswas.com is a one-page site carrying a photograph of Nihita, wearing a brown dress with spaghetti straps shot in a cafe in Kathmandu.
Describing Nihita Biswas as a “beautiful woman from Nepal”, the site that has no association with the young woman and has not contacted her for permission to use her name, gives a brief background of both her and Sobhraj, gleaned from media reports.
The “Fast Facts” is bound to leave Sobhraj seething. It says Nihita is engaged to convicted murderer Sobhraj, who is “believed to have committed 12-24 murders in the 1970s”.
Only Monday, Sobhraj, currently fighting a murder conviction in Nepal’s Supreme Court, issued a press statement from Kathmandu’s central prison, saying that no other court had ever found him guilty of murder and that the life term for the murder of an American tourist in Nepal was being contested.
To add to the couple’s indignation, Terrestrial Holdings has announced that the domain could be sold to the highest bidder.
“Somebody has put up a website in my name,” Nihita told IANS. “I don’t know who it is.”
There was no immediate comment from Sobhraj, who remains preoccupied seeking a date for the hearing of his final appeal. He is fighting the guilty verdict slapped on him by Kathmandu’s district court in 2004 and upheld by an appellate court. His formidable army of lawyers is pushing for a date this week since the apex court will adjourn for its traditional 15-day monsoon break soon.
Since last month, Nihita’s mother Shakuntala Thapa, an eminent lawyer, has also joined the army, saying she was determined to stake life and soul for his acquittal.
After the news of the engagement broke this month, both Nihita and Thapa have been hounded by the media and insinuations.