Mumbai:

The 31-year-old man who was detained in Chhattisgarh as a suspect in the Saif Ali Khan case earlier this month said the police action has cost him his job and a marriage proposal, brought immense disrepute to his family, and left him with an “unbearable dangerous feeling”. 

In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Akash Kanojia, who was briefly detained and interrogated, said his photograph was widely circulated despite having no involvement in the crime. “Why was my photo made viral? I want justice,” he said, threatening to move court if his photograph was not brought down by all those who shared it across various online platforms.

He also sought to know if police would have acted in a similar way had a VIP or a millionaire’s son been a suspect in the case.

On January 18, Mr Kanojia was detained from Mumbai Lokmanya Tilak Terminus-Kolkata Shalimar Jnaneswari Express at Chhattisgarh’s Durg station by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) after a tip off from Mumbai police, two days after Mr Khan was stabbed by an intruder at his residence in Bandra.

He was released a day later, with Mumbai Police officials saying he was just a suspect. Days later and after over 70 hours of an intense manhunt, a 30-year-old man, who was later identified as a Bangladeshi national, was arrested in connection with the attack.

Mr Kanojia, however, said the police action had severe repercussions and left him and his family traumatised.

He said he lost his job as a driver. He said his marriage was fixed but the prospective bride’s family called it off after he was detained in the case. He added that his relatives and friends are hesitant to meet or maintain ties with him and his family.

“Whatever happened to me should not happen to anyone else. I am a poor man, and that’s why I had to see such days. What if there was a VIP or a millionaire’s son in my place, what would they (police) have done? Such things happened to me today but they should not happen to anyone tomorrow. After such treatment, that dangerous feeling you get is unbearable,” he said. 

“I was defamed so much. It is a question of someone’s life. I was not wrong. I had not committed any crime. Then why was my photo made viral? I am not capable of committing such crimes,” he added. 

He requested all those who circulated his photograph across platforms to delete it. “Otherwise there is only one last stop – court. I’ll have to knock on the court’s door,” he said. 

Mr Kanojia recalled the events that led to his detention. He said he was travelling on the Mumbai Lokmanya Tilak Terminus-Kolkata Shalimar Jnaneshwari Express when he was cornered by the RPF men. “They showed me my photograph. I told him I am Akash Kanojia. They asked me to get off the train. When I asked them why, they said the Mumbai Police have asked them to locate me. Since I knew that the RPF was doing its duty, I agreed to go with them,” he said. 

“After this, the RPF took me with them. They told me that they would not ask me anything or initiate any action against me. They asked if I was just running away? I asked them why would I run? I told them that if they think I have done something wrong, then they should call the Mumbai cops. As the cops came, I was interrogated. I told them I did not commit the crime,” he said. 

Mr Kanojia said he asked the cops to take him to the actor to verify if he had carried out the attack. “I said that if he (Mr Khan) says that it was me who attacked him, then the police can blame me for all the crimes that took place in Mumbai that day. Why should I accept something that I have not done. After this, I was allowed to go home,” he said. 

Mr Kanojia’s father, Kailash, earlier criticised the cops for “ruining my son’s life”. 

“The police detained my son without verifying his identity. This mistake has ruined his life. Now, due to the mental trauma, Akash is unable to focus on work or communicate with his family. He has become withdrawn, doesn’t talk properly, and has lost all motivation,” he told PTI. 

“People are saying there is no resemblance between my son and the actual accused. He lost his job and his marriage was called off. Who is responsible? The behaviour of the police has destroyed Akash’s future,” he added. 

Speaking to reporters earlier, Mumbai police sub inspector Pradeep Fude said: “We can detain anyone for inquiry. We had been insisting he was just a suspect. There has been no mistake on our part. We had told the media that we would share authentic details but some went ahead and declared him an accused.” 

On January 16, Mr Khan suffered grievous injuries, after he was stabbed six times reportedly by Islam, during a failed burglary attempt at the actor’s 12th floor residence in “Satguru Sharan” building in upscale Bandra. 

Multiple teams of the police and the crime branch worked on several inputs and analysed footage from several CCTV cameras to track down the actor’s attacker. 

Days later on January 19, Sariful Islam, a Bangladeshi national, was arrested from near Hiranandani Estate in Kasarvadavali in Thane, about 35 kilometres from Mr Khan’s house in Bandra. He was subsequently remanded in police custody. 

Islam’s father, however, said his son is being framed for reasons unknown to him.

Mumbai:

A court here on Wednesday refused the city police custody of the Bangladeshi national arrested for allegedly stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan, and sent him in judicial remand noting that there was no fresh ground to extend his police custody.

The Bandra magistrate’s court after perusing the application submitted by the police seeking further custody said no fresh ground was made out.

“Further police custody, at least at this stage, is not justified,” said Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Komal Sing Rajput.

Citing the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions, the court told the investigating officer that if there was any new development, police can again seek the accused’s custody for the remaining period within permissible time.

As per the new criminal laws, police can seek a person’s custody for up to 15 days. It can be at a stretch, or in parts during a period of 40 or 60 days from the arrest, depending on the severity of the offense.

The accused — Mohammad Shariful Islam (30) — was produced before the Bandra magistrate court at the end of his police custody.

Islam allegedly broke into the 12th-storey residence of actor couple Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan in the upscale Bandra area with the intention of robbery in the early hours of January 16. When confronted by Saif (54), the accused allegedly stabbed him multiple times and fled.

He was arrested on January 19 from neighbouring Thane.

Islam’s father in Bangladesh, however, claimed that the man seen in the CCTV footage of the staircase of the actor’s building was not his son, who he said has been falsely implicated.

On Wednesday, the police pleaded for extension of the accused’s remand saying he was yet to come clean about the persons who helped him enter India illegally, and was providing incomplete information about his financial transactions.

A police team was sent to conduct investigation in Kolkata and statements of relevant individuals were recorded, the prosecution told the court.

The CCTV footage of Saif Ali Khan’s building and photograph of the accused have been sent to a forensic science laboratory for running facial recognition tests, it said.

The clothes worn by the accused while committing the crime and during his escape, the weapon and the tools used in the crime, a “gamcha” (towel) and a bag have been sent to the forensic laboratory for chemical analysis, the court was told.

The people who helped Islam enter India from Bangladesh were yet to be traced, the police said.

As the crime was of serious nature, it requires a thorough investigation and hence the police should be granted further remand of the accused, the application said.

Defence lawyers Dinesh Prajapati and Sandeep Sherkhane opposed the plea, saying the probe relating to the accused was complete.

The court, after hearing both the sides, noted that the record reflected that the investigation was over, and there was no fresh ground for custody.

As per the police, the accused changed his name from Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad to ‘Bijoy Das’ after entering India.

Saif Ali Khan who underwent an emergency surgery after the knife attack was discharged from the hospital after five days.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Mumbai:

Bangladesh national Shariful Islam Shehzad, who allegedly broke into actor Saif Ali Khan’s home to commit robbery and stabbed him multiple times during a fight, wanted to flee to his home country after the incident, police have found.

According to police sources, Shariful had planned to first travel to Howrah near Kolkata and then proceed to Bangladesh when he realised that police were after him. He tried to arrange for a train ticket to Howrah, but travel agents demanded more money because of the short notice. Before he could get his hands on a ticket, Shariful was arrested from Thane.

Cops are now tracking down all the travel agents he spoke to question them as part of the investigation into the high-profile case. The actor, who has suffered six stab injuries in the shocking attack, returned home yesterday after he was discharged from the hospital. Doctors, it is learnt, have advised him bed rest for a week and asked him not to receive any visitor now to prevent infection.

Cops Piece Together Sequence Of Events

Mumbai Police, which was left red-faced after the late-night attack in an area home to several celebrities, is going all out to get to the root of the case at the earliest. A police team took Shariful to the actor’s Bandra home yesterday to recreate the crime.

Police have found that on Wednesday night, the intruder scaled wall of the compound to approach the 12-storeyed building the actor lives in. He found the security guards of the building asleep. He then used the back staircase and air-conditioning duct to enter Mr Khan’s home through a window in one of the bathrooms. Shariful has told police that he had removed his shoes and kept them in his bag to prevent any noise. He had also switched off his phone.

Mr Khan and his house helps managed to lock Shariful into a room after the stabbing, but he escaped through the air-conditioning duct and fled down the stairs.

Police have found Shariful’s face cover from the room of Mr Khan’s younger son Jahangir, where the actor and the intruder had clashed. This face cover is being sent for forensic testing.

What Happened That Night

Eliyama Philip, a nanny for Saif’s sons, has told the police that she was the first to spot the intruder. The 56-year-old has said she was woken up by some noises around 2 am. She saw the bathroom door open and the light on and assumed that Kareena Kapoor Khan was checking on Jahangir or Jeh.

“… then I went back to sleep but, again, I realised something was wrong. So I woke up again and saw a man come out of the bathroom and go into the boy’s room. I quickly got up and went to Jeh’s room. The attacker then put his finger near his mouth and said ‘Don’t make any noise, nobody will go out’ in Hindi,” Ms Philip has said. “When I rushed to pick up Jeh, the man, armed with a wooden stick and a long Hexa blade. ran towards me and tried attacking me, she said.

“I tried to block the attack by putting my hand forward, but the blade hit me near the wrists of both my hands and on the middle finger of my left hand,” she said. “At that time, I asked him, ‘What do you want?’. He said, ‘I want money.’ I asked, ‘How much do you want?’ He said in English, ‘one crore’,” Ms Philip has said in her statement.

Hearing Ms Philip scream, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan rushed out of their room. When Mr Khan asked the intruder what he wanted, he attacked him with a wooden object and the hexa blade, Ms Philip said.

“Saif Sir somehow managed to get away from him and we all ran out of the room and pulled the door of the room,” she said, adding that everyone then went to the upper floor of their home. The intruder later escaped, she has said.

How Accused Was Caught

Police formed 30 teams to track down the accused. The cops scanned CCTV footage of the building and noticed the suspect leaving after the attack. Several hours of footage from across the city were scanned to find a match. During this tenuous exercise, cops found footage from DN Nagar in Andheri. They saw the suspect getting off a bike and tracked down the two-wheeler using its number.

Parallelly, following local intelligence inputs, police zeroed in on a rented accommodation at Koliwada in Worli, where the accused lived with three others. A police team questioned the people living there. They managed to get the suspect’s name and related information. Police also got his phone number and used it to track his location. The accused had been hiding in a thicket on a deserted road in Thane. Police surrounded him from all sides and then took him into custody.

After his arrest, they found that he was a Bangladesh national who had illegally crossed into India months back.

Saif Ali Khan returned home from hospital

Saif Now Back Home

The 54-year-old actor returned home after spending five days at Lilavati Hospital, where he was admitted after the chilling attack. Mr Khan was captured waving to the media and his fans before entering home last afternoon. The actor suffered six stab injuries, one of them on his back. The knife, doctors have said, missed his spinal cord by just 2 mm. His spinal fluid had started leaking and a surgery was done to fix that. The actor also suffered injuries on his face and arm and has undergone plastic surgery. Doctors have said he is recovering well but advised him rest for now. Mr Khan is expected to record a statement with police now that he is back home.

Mumbai:

The Bangladeshi national, who has been arrested on charges of stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan after breaking into his residence, entered India through Meghalaya seven months ago and stayed in West Bengal for a few weeks before he moved to Mumbai in search of a job, police sources have revealed.

Mumbai Police officers involved in the interrogation of the accused, Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad, said the 30-year-old crossed the Dawki river, along the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, to illegally enter India. He then changed his name to Bijoy Das and began living in the country, they added. 

Police had earlier said that Shehzad is a native of Jhalokathi district in Bangladesh. 

According to a police official, Shehzad said that during his stay in Bengal, he used a local resident’s Aadhaar card to procure a mobile phone SIM card before moving to Mumbai.

The SIM card was registered in the name of one Khukumoni Jahangir Sekha of Bengal, the official said.

After reaching Mumbai, the officer added, the accused chose to work in places where he was not required to furnish any documents. “He studied till Class 12 in Bangladesh and had come to India in search of a job,” the officer said. 

Saif Ali Khan suffered grievous injuries after he was stabbed six times, reportedly by Shehzad during a failed burglary attempt at the actor’s 12th-floor residence in “Satguru Sharan” building in upscale Bandra in the early hours of January 16. The doctors who performed an emergency surgery had removed a 2.5-inch piece of a broken knife from his spine afterwards. 

If the knife had pierced 2 mm deeper, it could have caused a severe injury, the doctors had noted. The actor was discharged from hospital and returned home on Tuesday.

Shehzad, sources earlier said, told police that he stabbed the actor in his back multiple times in an attempt to free himself after he had grabbed hold of him. He also said that he hid in the garden of the building housing Mr Khan flat for around two hours before fleeing the area.

In her statement to the police, Mr Khan’s wife and actor Kareena Kapoor Khan recalled the attack on her husband and said she saw the intruder stab him repeatedly. “The attacker was aggressive. I saw him attack Saif repeatedly…Our priority was to take Saif to the hospital,” she said. 

A nurse caring for the couple’s younger son Jehangir (Jeh), Eliyama Philips – who first encountered the intruder – said the accused had demanded Rs 1 crore. 

Multiple teams of the police and the crime branch worked on several inputs and analysed footage from several CCTV cameras to track down Mr Khan’s attacker. 

After over 70 hours of an intense manhunt, Shehzad was arrested from near Hiranandani Estate in Kasarvadavali in Thane, about 35 kilometres from Mr Khan’s house in Bandra, on Sunday. He was subsequently remanded in police custody for five days.

New Delhi:

Undone by a paratha. And the digital payments infrastructure.

That was how Shariful Islam Shehzad, the man accused of stabbing Saif Ali Khan six times – in a suspected attempted burglary incident – was tracked down and arrested by Mumbai Police Sunday.

Sources told NDTV this morning teams of police looking for Shehzad zeroed in on his location after he paid for breakfast – a paratha – via a Google Pay transaction, presumably on his mobile phone.

Sources also said he used to work at that restaurant, where he received praise for his hard work. The police also reportedly plan to speak to the person who hired Shehzad – a man called Pandey.

From there the accused fled to Dadar and then to Thane.

READ | Man Who Stabbed Saif Ali Khan Hid In Thane. How Cops Found Him 

This was after he earlier jumped from Bandra (where the attack took place) to Dadar to Worli and then Andheri, and then back to Dadar; moving around was how he managed to evade the cops for a while.

How Shehzad Was Finally Caught

A Bangladeshi national living illegally in India, he was taken into custody off the side of a deserted road in the Thane area; in scenes that would not be out of place in a movie, he was hunted into a thicket by the side of the road that was then surrounded before the police caught their man.

He had been on the run since the attack on the Bollywood star at his home in Mumbai’s posh Bandra West area (very) early Thursday. The police believe he sneaked past the high-profile building’s security by jumping over the compound wall of an adjacent building and sneaking in via a rear staircase.

He reportedly told cops he used the air-conditioning ducts to avoid detection.

A police official said Shehzad took the stairs till the seventh or eighth floor and then entered the ducts, climbing to the 12th floor and entering the actor’s flat through a bathroom window. He was seen spotted by the actor’s staff, which led to the chain of events that resulted in the attack.

Shehzad was caught on CCTV cameras entering and exiting stairwell, providing clear images that helped the police identify him and track his movements. The hunt included forming 30 police teams, each following separate leads and lines of investigation, including scanning hours of security footage.

READ | Another Photo Of Saif Case Suspect: Changed Clothes After Attack

The footage wasn’t just from Saif Ali Khan’s home; in fact, a critical moment was when the cops spotted Shehzad on CCTV footage in DN Nagar in Andheri, which is about 12 km from Bandra West.

He was spotted on a two-wheeler, which provided cops with another way to track him.

In escaping from the police (for as long he did), Shehzad was at a bus stop in the Bandra area till 7am on the day of the attack, after which he made his way on to a train to Worli.

READ | Saif Ali Khan Attack Accused Slept At Bus Stop After Incident: Cops

The police also latched on to his phone’s signal for a while, but lost that after he turned it off; he told cops he panicked after seeing his photo (from CCTV cameras in the rear stairwell in Saif Ali Khan’s house) on TV news bulletins. The last-recorded location of the phone was from Thane.

What Happened That Night

A little past 2am on Thursday, Shehzad was caught inside the bedroom of the actor’s youngest son – Jehangir. Shehzad told police he did not know he was in the Bollywood star’s home. In the scuffle that followed Khan was stabbed six times, including a life-threatening wound near his spinal cord.

After the stabbing the suspect fled, changing his blood-stained clothes on the way; the police haven’t yet found that piece of the evidence chain, which they will need to match with Saif Ali Khan’s blood and prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Shehzad stabbed the actor.

READ | “If Knife Was 2 mm Deeper…”: Doctors Say Saif Out Of ICU

Khan was rushed to Lilavati Hospital – in an auto-rickshaw because his private vehicles were not immediately available – where he underwent extensive surgery for several hours. Doctors – who recovered a two-and-half inch piece of the knife lodged in his back – later said he is recovering well.

Shehzad has been sent to police custody for five days.

The police are also checking if he had accomplices within the actor’s home.

Attacker’s Lawyer Says ‘Innocent’

The lawyer representing Shehzad has argued the allegations are false and that his client is being made a scapegoat because a celebrity is involved. “… nothing (incriminating) has been recovered from him.”

READ | Saif Attacker Jailed For 5 Days, Claims He Is Being Framed

“They have not produced any document to prove he is a Bangladeshi national,” his lawyer said.

However, the suspect himself reportedly told cops, “…haan, maine hi kiya hai (yes, I did it)”.

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Mumbai:

The seriousness of the courtroom in Bandra, where a Bangladeshi man arrested for allegedly attacking actor Saif Ali Khan was presented on Sunday, momentarily dissipated when two lawyers jostled to represent him.

The unusual drama concerning the high-profile case prompted the magistrate before whom the 30-year-old man had been brought for remand proceedings to act as referee and suggest to the lawyers to appear as a team.

After breaking much sweat, the Mumbai police on Sunday morning arrested Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad from Thane city for allegedly sneaking into the Bollywood star’s Bandra home in the early hours of January 16 with the intention of theft and repeatedly stabbing him.

Amid heavy police presence, Shehzad was produced before a metropolitan magistrate court in Bandra in the afternoon.

The court asked him if he had any complaints against the police to which Shehzad replied in the negative. He was then taken to a box meant for accused persons in the back end of the courtroom.

A lawyer then came forward claiming to be appearing for the accused.

However, the scene turned dramatic just before he could take the signature of the accused on the ‘vakalatamana’ (legal document authorising a lawyer to appear in a case).

Another lawyer jostled his way to the accused box and took Shehzad’s signature on his vakalatamana, triggering moments of confusion about who would appear for the alleged attacker.

To defuse the situation, the magistrate suggested to both the competing lawyers to represent Shehzad. “You both can appear,” the magistrate said, bringing back the focus on the remand proceedings. The duo agreed.

The court subsequently remanded Shehzad in police custody for five days.

Before arresting the accused, police had rounded up several individuals who resembled him based on the footage of a CCTV camera from the actor’s building.

Saif Ali Khan, one of Bollywood’s leading actors, was repeatedly stabbed with a knife by an intruder inside his 12th-floor apartment in ‘Satguru Sharan’ building in upscale Bandra in the early hours of January 16.

The 54-year-old actor underwent an emergency surgery at the Lilavati Hospital where he was rushed following the incident that took place around 2.30 am. He is recovering and may be discharged soon, doctors have said.

Earlier in the day, police said Shehzad hails from Jhalokathi, also called Jhalakathi, district in southern Bangladesh’s Barisal division, adding that he was in Mumbai for the past five months, during which he did petty jobs, including at a housekeeping agency. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)