Saif Ali Khan attacked: An old footage helped nabbed the accused, believed to be a Bangladeshi national, who had stabbed and injured actor Saif Ali Khan in his Bandra residence. The police caught accused Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad after a CCTV clip from January 9 showed him roaming around the Dadar and Prabhadevi areas in Mumbai.
The video showed Shehzad roaming around the Dadar railway station, an area in Prabhadevi and Worli Koliwada in the weeks preceding the attack.
Shehzad used several aliases including Bijoy Das, Vijay Das, Mohammad Illyas, and BJ, which further complicated the probe, they said. Before he was caught, posters with images of the suspect, which were extracted from the CCTV footage of him descending the stairs of Saif Ali Khan’s home were circulated across Mumbai and the surrounding areas.
The Mumbai Police is also planning to recreate the crime scene at Khan’s residence. A police official said that Shehzad will be taken to Khan’s residence at ‘Satguru Sharan’ building sometime in the coming days to recreate the crime scene as part of their investigation.
The police also said that the documents from Shehzad indicated that he was a Bangladesh national who had entered India illegally. However, the lawyer representing Shehzad in court argued that he was an Indian citizen living in Mumbai.
The lawyer said that the matter was being unnecessarily hyped because it involved the star, which otherwise would have been a normal case. “The reasons for custody were not clearly stated in the remand application. The accused is a young boy with no prior criminal record and is being made a scapegoat,” the lawyer said.
The accused reportedly entered the 54-year-old Bollywood actor’s home on January 16 with an intent of committing theft but ended up stabbing the actor in process, who was at home at that point.
Shehzad, 30, reportedly worked with a housekeeping agency in Thane, and was arrested on January 20 at a labour camp near a metro construction site at the Hiranandani Estate.
Saif Ali Khan is currently recovering at the Lilavati Hospital, where he underwent a surgery to stop spinal fluid leakage.