Internationally wanted conman Charles Sobhraj and six other notorious inmates escaped from the high security Tihar jail on March 16, 1986 after drugging jail officials.
With the help of two outside accomplices and getting away in a car that was brought to the jail compound.
In an operation lasting barely 20 minutes, and which showed all indications of thorough planning, the prisoners fed the jail staff sweets, grapes and fruit cream — all spiked with drugs — to celebrate the birthday of an inmate, and tied them with medical gauze-tape before making the break.
Seven jail officials were placed under arrest and their services suspended for dereliction of duty by Lt Governor HL Kapur, while an inquiry was initiated.
Among the six others who escaped, Laxmi Narain and Brij Mohan were undertrials lodged in the jail on charges of murder and dacoity. The other four were Ajai Kumar, Bhola, Dinesh and Bajrang, the first two being undertrials on charges of murder, and the other two undergoing terms of one year and four months respectively for theft.
It was at about 2.40pm that two men came to Gate No. 3 of Tihar jail through the unmanned outer gate. Sunday is a day when no visitors are allowed and the jail inmates are given freedom of movement to wash up, exercise, and clean their cells.
For reasons known only to the jail staff, however, the two men who came in an off-white Ambassador car, were allowed in through Gate No. 3 of the jail that houses high risk prisoners such as Satwant Singh, RS Sethia, Coomar Narain, Ram Swarup, and the Larkin brothers.
The car was parked a little distance away from Gate No. 3 and two men carried a basketful of grapes, pethas and fruit cream. The food was taken to assistant superintendent SR Yadav, who was the duty officer, and with whom Charles Sobhraj was reportedly sitting.
While the two outsiders invited the wardens, sentries and the two helpers to join the party, Sobhraj went into his ward and called his warden, Prem Bahadur, and six others. Police later surmised that what Sobhraj and his accomplices ate might have borne specific indications of non-contamination.
Two convicts serving life sentence, who were deployed as helpers in the front area, and an undertrial, Mohd Atiq, were also given the food. Within minutes, however, the seven staffers, two convicts, and the undertrial felt faint and rapidly started losing consciousness.
The rest of the operation was marked by precision and pre-meditation normally seen only in movies. The escapees tied the figures on the floor with wire gauze and dragged four of them into different office rooms, bolting the doors from outside.
They also locked the inside jail gate to prevent anyone from making an accidental entry and giving them away. Even the peep hole was blocked to enable the operation to be carried out in absolute secrecy.
The identity of the two outside accomplices was a mystery till late night and the last entrant on the jail logbook was Chandan Singh, a pharmacist who came to meet the inmates with mental illnesses. No entry about the two men who brought the drugged food was made in the log book.
With the jail staff drugged, tied and taken out of the way and the inside gates closed, the seven jailbirds opened Gate No. 3 with the keys picked from the munshi’s pocket and whizzed in the car past the watchtower guards. The guards later testified that they saw the car going out at about 3 p.m.
Police speculated that there might have been another car parked a little distance away because nine people packed into a car travelling at high speed, might have aroused suspicion. Police said that the nearest point to cross the Delhi border was just 10 minutes away into Haryana and the state police were later alerted about them.
Meanwhile, at the jail, life was showing faint indications of returning to order. Mohd Atiq was the first to regain consciousness.
Atiq ran to munshi Anand Prakash, who was tied up in an office room, and broke the news to him. Prakash, still feeling faint, staggered to the house of deputy superintendent VD Pushkarna and alerted him about the jail break.
Pushkarna, who was in charge of ward No. 3 at the time, informed the police control room and also sounded a general alarm in the jail summoning staff. By this time, however,
Police at night announced that all the city borders were scaled and all the known hideouts of Brij Mohan, who police held responsible for making the arrangements for the escape, were under observation.