2,500 TONS UREA ARRIVES AMIS FERTILIZER SHORTAGE Kathmandu, 16 July: Altogether 2,500 metric tons urea arrived Saturday at the Birgunj dry port from Assam in India at a time of extreme shortage during the planting season. Anti-government protests have held at government depots for shortage amid acceptance the shortage will lower maize and paddy yields this year. Officials said 500 tons will be immediately distributed in Bara and Parsa. nnnn FRENCH SERIAL KILLED POSES HEADACHE FOR SECURITYIN HIGH SECURITY PRISON CELL Kathmandu, 16 July: Notorious ‘bikini killer’ Charles Sobhraj, who is serving his life term in the Central Jail of Kathmandu, has apparently found another wicked way to trouble prison Officials, Ankit Adkhikari writes in The Kathmandu Post.. Guard Ganga Ram Lakhu of the Central Jail and other co-prisoners of the French serial killer say Sobhraj these days usually does not go to toilet, rather ends up littering the room in solitary confinement where he has been kept. The “evil thinking” Sobhraj moreover wraps his body wastes in newspapers and plastics, and plunges them in various corners of his room including bed sheets and racks, said Chaukidar Lakhu, responsible for the jail’s internal maintenance. According to Tek Bahadur Bhattarai, one of the leaders in the prison, Sobhraj does so in order to make sure that the hands of jail staff and other officials, including police and administration, get dirty when they enter his room for regular check-ups. “Had he been doing so out of unconsciousness or other mental ailments, he would also have excreted on the bed where he sleeps,” said Bhattarai. “It is difficult even to stand outside his room for more than 15 minutes.” The internationally famed criminal, who is also known as Serpent Killer, spends most of his time in the jail’s solitary confinement. “Whenever he is let outside the confinement, he somehow manages to trouble other co-prisoners,” said Lakhu. “We have no other option than the solitary confinement to control the mischief of this 69-year-old dainty-minded character.” Sharing Sobhraj’s recent monkey business, a police official at the Central Jail said Sobhraj tricked a Lebanese national arrested on charge of overstay three weeks ago. “He is found to have told the Lebanese that he could help him get out of prison on bail,” said the official. “He pledged to take help from his lawyer mother-in-law and conned USD 700 out of him.” Chaukidar Lakhu said it was after this incident that he was sent to solitary confinement. Sobhraj, however, did not like to comment on his mischief. From inside the bars of his room in the solitary confinement, he told the Post that he was perfect there. “I don’t have any grudges to share with you,” he said. Wearing smile on his face, Sobhraj, on Sunday afternoon, looked proud when he told he had been cooking his food on his own. With approximately 21-inch colour television and an electric water-heater in his room, Sobhraj likes to eat chicken mostly. He purchases his own food from the co-prisoners involved in internal jail-business. “I read and write the whole day,” he said, adding that he is a regular reader of The Kathmandu Post. “I also watch international news channels and some movies on television.” Papers scattered all over in his dark confinement, he also said he has been writing a book, however, refusing to share anything much about it. Sobhraj was arrested from a casino in Kathmandu in September 2003. nnnn