Black Warrant: Charles Sobhraj escaped from Tihar after drugging officers with sedative-laced barfi, reveals real-life Sunil Gupta

Vikramaditya Motwane’s Netflix series Black Warrant, which recreates the events that happened inside Tihar jail in the 1980s, also follows serial killer Charles Sobhraj’s activities when he was imprisoned here. In the show, Charles is played by Sidhant Gupta and Zahan Kapoor plays jailer Sunil Kumar Gupta. In an earlier interview, Sunil had once shared how Charles managed to escape from Tihar on a Sunday in March of 1986. Sunil’s narration made it sound like the prison officials trusted Charles to police himself and were shocked when he drugged them and comfortably walked out.

In a chat with The Lallantop, Sunil said that he wouldn’t call Charles’ escape “jailbreak” but “cheating with the system.” Sunil said that since they live with prisoners for years, they start seeing them as family. “When a prisoner comes to jail, we treat him like family. We don’t bother with what he has done outside, we just treat him like family. Also, you tend to become a little friendly with time. Because someone has been around for so many years, you start trusting them a little bit.”

Sunil then recalled the events of the day and said that Charles was pretending to celebrate his birthday on that Sunday. “He said that I am celebrating my birthday. He chose a Sunday for that, also because on that day, we function with a skeleton staff. One of his guys brought in some sedatives. Charles ordered for some barfi and laced with the sedatives. After that, he served it to everyone who held an important position, or was on duty, he gave them some barfi and a Rs 50 note. Currency wasn’t allowed inside the jail in those days but people like him, always found a way,” he said.

Sunil said that the officers on duty ate the barfi and wished him on his birthday. But the amount of sedative in the sweet was quite high so it started taking effect in 5-10 minutes. “It was a Sunday and there wasn’t much movement. He comfortably opened the lock, and got out,” he said.

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There was a nationwide manhunt for Charles after his escape. He was found after almost a month in Goa and served his remaining sentence of 10 years in Tihar Jail. After his jail term in Tihar, Charles was imprisoned in Nepal. In 2022, he was released from the jail in Nepal on grounds of old age and was deported to his home country of France.