Mumbai:

The knife attack on Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan – which doctors at Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital said left him with six stab wounds, including one near his spinal cord – was not real, Maharashtra Ports Minister Nitesh Rane has alleged, in shocking comments a day after the 54-year-old actor was discharged and returned home.

He accused Mr Khan – whom he seemed to refer to as “garbage” – of “dancing while walking” out of the hospital, and ranted, “I doubted if he had been stabbed… or if he was acting.”

“Look at what Bangladeshis are doing in Mumbai. They entered Saif Ali Khan’s house. Earlier they used to stand at road crossings… now they have started entering houses. Maybe he came to take him (Mr Khan) away. It is good… garbage should be taken away,” the BJP leader said.

#WATCH | Pune: Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane says, “Look at what Bangladeshis are doing in Mumbai. They entered Saif Ali Khan’s house. Earlier they used to stand at the crossings of the roads, now they have started entering houses. Maybe he came to take him (Saif) away. It is… pic.twitter.com/XUBwpwQ6RQ

— ANI (@ANI) January 23, 2025

“I saw when he came out of the hospital. I doubted whether he had been stabbed, or he was acting. He was dancing while walking,” he was quoted by news agency ANI.

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

The crass, and incendiary, comments didn’t end there.

Rane also hit out at NCP leaders Jitendra Awhad and Supriya Sule, accusing them of showing concern only “whenever any Khan, like Shah Rukh Khan or Saif Ali Khan, gets hurt”.

“… everyone starts talking about it then. When a Hindu actor like Sushant Singh Rajput is tortured, no one comes forward to say anything… that Mumbra’s Jeetuddin (a crude reference to Mr Awhad) and Baramati’s Tai (Ms Sule) did not come forward to say anything…”

READ | Held Tightly, Attacker Stabbed Saif In Back To Free Himself: Sources

“Have you ever seen them worrying about any Hindu artist?”

Ajit Pawar Responds

The comments were shrugged off by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who said, “I don’t know what he said… but if he has something on his mind, he can tell the Home Department.” Mumbai Police reports to the state’s Home Ministry, which is led by Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis.

“The truth, at the moment, is that the person has been arrested. That person had come from Bangladesh… everyone has an attraction towards Mumbai.”

“He needed to go back to Bangladesh after seeing Mumbai (but) needed money,” Mr Pawar said, suggesting Shehzad may have been trying to steal cash to buy a ticket home.

Mr Khan’s nanny had said Shehzad demanded Rs 1 crore when confronted.

READ | Attacker Entered Room Of Saif’s Son Jeh, Wanted Rs 1 Crore: Sources

“Perhaps yesterday, when Saif Ali Khan was going home, looking at his health and clothes it was difficult to guess he was attacked a few days ago. But what happened was true,” Mr Pawar said.

Sanjay Nirupam’s Shocker Too

However, it wasn’t just Nitesh Rane making such comments.

Sanjay Nirupam, who was with the Congress before switching to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, said, “… the way Saif came out… it seemed nothing happened six days ago.”

Bangladeshi National Arrested

Mr Khan was attacked, the police believe, by Shariful Shehzad, a Bangladeshi national living illegally in India. The cops also believe Shehzad, who said he didn’t know he was in the actor’s home, was trying to burgle it when he was confronted, first by the nanny and then Mr Khan.

Shehzad has been arrested and is in police custody; he was tracked down to Thane after leading the cops on a long-winded chase through parts of Mumbai as he tried to return to Bangladesh.

READ | Paratha By UPI Payment: How Cops Caught Saif Attack Suspect

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)”.

With input from agencies

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Mumbai:

The Bangladeshi national arrested for attacking Saif Ali Khan gained entry into the actor’s building in Mumbai’s Bandra area by scaling its compound wall, and found the security guards sleeping at that time, police said on Tuesday.

The Mumbai police on Tuesday recreated the crime scene with the accused at the Satguru Sharan building, where the actor resides.

Khan (54) was stabbed repeatedly by the intruder, Shariful Islam Shehzad Mohammad Rohilla Amin Fakir alias Vijay Das (30), inside his 12-floor apartment in the wee hours of January 16. The actor suffered multiple stab injuries in the attack and underwent an emergency surgery at the Lilavati Hospital.

Three days after the attack, the police arrested the accused from neighbouring Thane city.

A police official said, “Both the security guards in the building where actor Saif Ali Khan resides were sleeping when his attacker entered it by crossing over the boundary wall.” “As he found both the security guards in deep slumber, the accused entered the building from the main entrance where no CCTV camera has been installed. The accused removed his shoes and kept them in his bag to avoid making any noise and also switched off his phone,” he said.

“During the probe, the police found that there are no CCTV cameras installed in the building’s corridor. The investigation revealed that one of the two security guards was sleeping in the cabin and the other near the gate,” he added.

In order to recreate the crime scene, the police took the accused to the actor’s building as well as at other places that he possibly visited to have food, to change clothes and to board a train, he said.

The accused is kept in the police lockup either at the Bandra or the Santacruz police stations and no one except the investigation officer has permission to meet him, he said, adding that he is being provided food that other accused are being given.

Police Inspector (Crime) Ajay Lingnurkar has been appointed as the investigation officer in the case, the official said.

Fakir, a native of Jhalokathi district in Bangladesh, had been residing in Mumbai for over five months, working odd jobs and associated with a housekeeping agency, the police have said.

A court in Mumbai on Sunday remanded the accused in five-day police custody. 

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

Mumbai:

A 30-year-old Bangladeshi national, who was arrested on Sunday on charges of stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan after breaking into his house, has reportedly confessed to the crime, saying “haan, maine hi kiya hai (yes, I did it)”.

According to police sources, Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad was arrested from near Hiranandani Estate in Kasarvadavali in Thane, about 35 kilometres from Mr Khan’s house in Mumbai’s Bandra area. The breakthrough came after over 70 hours of an intense manhunt that was launched following the attack during a failed burglary bid in the early hours of Thursday. 

After being caught, when a senior officer asked Shehzad if he was the one who had attacked Mr Khan, the accused said “haan, maine hi kiya hai“, a source said.

The police traced Shehzad to a labour camp in a forested area based on the information provided by a labour contractor. 

As soon as Shehzad got a whiff that a team of 100 policemen had reached and were looking for him in Thane, the accused hid himself in the bushes in a forested area, a source said. “He was arrested after a search operation that lasted for seven hours in the city,” the source added. 

Earlier in the day, senior police officer Dixit Gedam told reporters that Shehzad is a Bangladeshi national. “He does not have any Indian documents. Some things found in his possession show that he is a Bangladeshi national,” Mr Gedam said. 

Police also said the accused has been living in Mumbai for the past four months and had changed his name to Bijoy Das.

Defence lawyer Sandeep D Sherkhane, however, said the case has been hyped because of the presence of Mr Khan. 

Mr Sherkhane also contended that his client has been residing in the country for several years and has vital documents (for staying in the country), and that his family is also living in India.

A court remanded the accused in five-day police custody. 

Fifty-four-year-old 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. 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.

In her statement to the police, 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 Khan’s attacker. 

On Friday, a carpenter was held as he resembled the screengrab of the suspect from the CCTV footage at the actor’s building, but he was released later as he was found to have no link to the crime. A day later, a suspect was detained in Chhattisgarh’s Durg railway station but was released on Sunday.

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.)

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the police have gathered several clues in the case pertaining to an attack on actor Saif Ali Khan at his residence, and the culprit will be arrested soon.

Mr Fadnavis’ remarks came as at least two images of the suspect, whose face was clearly captured on CCTVs, have surfaced.

Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Mr Fadnavis, who holds the home portfolio in the state, said: “Police investigation is going on….they have got many clues and I feel the police will very soon zero in (on the culprit).” 

Mr Khan was grievously injured after an intruder stabbed him six times at his residence in Mumbai’s post Bandra West neighbourhood area early on Thursday. The actor, who received multiple stab injuries, including in his neck, underwent an emergency surgery at Lilavati Hospital and is currently recovering.

In one of the images of the suspected attacker that surfaced on Thursday, he is seen taking the stairs while fleeing the building after stabbing the actor. In another image that surfaced on Friday, he is seen in a new set of clothes at, according to sources, Bandra Railway Station. 

Earlier on Friday, reports emerged that a possible suspect had been detained by the police but a top officer later clarified that the man, who was taken to Bandra Police Station, had nothing to do with the case.

According to police sources, the accused had demanded Rs 1 crore after barging inside Mr Khan’s flat. 

Mumbai:

A new CCTV footage has emerged showing the man who stabbed Saif Ali Khan climbing the stairs before entering the actor’s house yesterday. The footage – time-stamped 1:37 am – shows the intruder advancing cautiously so as not to alert any of the residents of the 12-story building. He had his face covered and was carrying a bag.

In another footage from the building’s sixth floor, which emerged yesterday, the intruder was seen taking the stairs while fleeing after the incident. He was not seen thereafter. It is suspected he had used the fire shaft to escape after that, the same way he had come upstairs.

There was no sign of the intruder in the CCTV footage in the lobby area, suggesting he did not use the main gate to enter and exit the building. Sources said he had scaled the wall of an adjacent building to enter ‘Satguru Sharan’ compound. The actor’s home spreads over four floors in the building in the posh Bandra locality.

The cops suspect he may have changed clothes to avoid being caught while fleeing the scene. Sources said he was spotted near the Bandra railway station after the incident.

Read: “If Knife Was 2 mm Deeper…”: Doctors Say Saif Ali Khan Out Of ICU

The intruder was first spotted in Mr Khan’s younger son Jeh’s room by his nanny. She confronted him, but couldn’t stop him, while another house help alerted Mr Khan. The actor then tried to fight off the intruder but was attacked with a knife. With six stab injuries, including one on his neck and another near his spine, he was rushed to the nearby Lilavati Hospital and was operated on.

A senior doctor at the hospital told reporters today that the actor is recovering well and has been shifted out of the ICU. He would have sustained a severe injury if the knife had gone in 2 mm deeper, said Dr Niraj Uttamani, the Chief Operating Officer at Lilavati.

Read: “Don’t Make Noise”: Intruder Who Stabbed Saif Ali Khan Told Nannies Before Attack

The police have detained a suspect for questioning. Not much is known about the suspect despite a facial similarity between him and the suspect caught on the CCTV.

The attack has raised questions over the role of the security guards in the posh area. It has also fuelled Opposition salvo over the law-and-order situation in the city.

Mumbai Police has registered a case of robbery, trespassing, and causing grievous hurt.