
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 23: Some Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and BJP leaders and even ministers in the Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis government have raised questions over the speedy recovery of the Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan and expressed doubts if he was indeed stabbed or was just “acting.”
They have even gone to the extent of raising Hindu – Muslim issue in the attack on Saif Ali Khan criticising some political leaders for showing sympathy with the Muslim actor for the attack while showing no concern if a Hindu actor was attacked.
In a shocking comment a day after he was discharged from hospital, the Maharashtra Ports Minister Nitesh Rane raised questions over the attack on Saif Ali Khan, asking if the actor was really stabbed or if he was “acting.” Rane said Saif, who discharged from hospital on Tuesday was “dancing while walking” back to his residence.
Addressing a gathering in Pune, Mr Rane 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.
“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 said. 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…” “Have you ever seen them worrying about any Hindu artist?” he asked.
His remarks came a day after Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam raised questions over the actor’s quick recovery in five days after he was stabbed six times by an intruder at his house on January 16 morning. Saif underwent a six-hour-long surgery as a 2.5-inch knife was stabbed in his body. The actor had also suffered an injury near his spine and had to be shifted to the ICU following the surgery.
Raising doubts over the swift recovery of the actor, Mr Sanjay Nirupam said on Wednesday that Saif returned home “jumping and dancing” from the hospital. He sought to know how deadly the attack on him was.
“Has the medical sector progressed so much that Saif Ali Khan comes to his home jumping and dancing (after the attack)… It should be revealed how deadly the attack was and how badly he was injured. The family should come forward and disclose this because, after this incident, such an atmosphere was created in Mumbai that the law and order of Mumbai has collapsed, the Home Ministry has failed, the Maharashtra government has been ruined, and every citizen in Mumbai is unsafe,” Nirupam said.
“The way Saif came out (of the hospital), it seems as if nothing happened 4 days ago… I want to ask the doctors, can a person whose operation lasted for 6 hours come out in such good shape within 4 days?” the Shiv Sena leader added.
On the other hand, Shaina NC, leader of BJP’s ally Shiv Sena, said that Saif walked out “like a tiger” from the hospital. She took a potshot at “certain people of the political class” and said that they were questioning the integrity of the Mumbai Police.
“Just because Saif Ali Khan walked in like a lion with a knife near his spine and his 8-year-old son, he has proudly walked out like a tiger. Instead of being happy for him and the fact that his life got saved, I don’t know what the media and certain people of the political class are doing by questioning the integrity of the police force. Let’s talk about safety measures in this high-profile case,” Shaina said.
The adverse comments were also 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.
“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.
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.
On the doubts expressed over the attack on the actor, a Bengaluru-based cardiologist, Dr Deepak Krishnamurthy, offered an explanation for the actor’s speedy recovery. In a series of posts on X, Dr Krishnamurthy wrote, “For people doubting if Saif Ali Khan really had a spine surgery (funnily even some doctors!).” Alongside, he shared a video of his mother walking with a fractured foot in a cast, just hours after undergoing spine surgery for a fractured bone in her spine. He revealed that his mother was discharged from the hospital the next day. “This is a video of my mother from 2022 at the age of 78y, walking with a fractured foot in a cast and a spine surgery on the same evening when spine surgery was done. A younger fit person can recover even faster.
For doctors who are doubting Saif’s recovery… all I want to tell you is to get better exposure,” he added. Dr Krishnamurthy then explained that the actor only had a leak and a tear: “What Saif had was only a cerebrospinal fluid leak and a tear in dura mater [a thick membrane that protects the brain and spinal cord], which was repaired.”
He further said, “Nowadays, people who have had cardiac bypass surgeries walk and climb stairs on 3rd 4th day! Please educate yourselves about things before coming on social media and proudly displaying your ignorance! Talk to experts, read up and learn.”
Dr Amit Thadhani, who is a surgeon, also commented on the actor’s remarkable recovery. “Saw the video of Saif walking out of hospital in good condition. That’s the beauty of modern medicine,” he wrote on X. He explained, “Dural puncture with CSF leak – close the defect, remove drain in 2-3 days and discharge. Nowadays, major spine surgery itself has become a one day stay with no bed rest needed.”
“Most likely exploration of the neck wound would have been negative for major injury with only suturing needed, no stay required for that too. Neck dressing is visible on the video. I don’t see anything fishy as far as treatment is concerned,” Dr Thadhani further said.
While responding to one of the comments on his posts, Dr Thadhani explained, “My guess is he was stabbed in the back while he was trying to hold the attacker off. Hence, most likely it’s gone obliquely paraspinal where there is a lot of muscle that can cause the blade to break off without penetrating into the spinal canal. Had he been stabbed in the back upfront, it would have gone dead straight, hit the bone and stopped, or in worst case gone through or next to the disc into the spinal cord.”
Indian actor and director Pooja Bhatt has slammed the “conspiracy theorists” and said the same people who are questioning Saif had lauded him when he had checked into the hospital on the night of the attack on his own.
“The graphic details of the stabbing that emerged in the media painted an image in people’s heads about Saif’s physical state. That image was perhaps not in sync with the visuals of seeing him walk out of hospital on his own two feet,” she said. She said Saif has shown courage and set an example for others and therefore people should not speculate in his case.
“But don’t these very people forget that they lauded him for walking himself into the hospital as well? A man who checks himself into the hospital in a wounded, traumatised condition surely has the grit to walk out of the hospital on his own. We should be applauding this instead of resorting to being conspiracy theorists,” she said.
Reacting to Rane’s remark, NCP-SP leader Rohit Pawar said there was a need to recruit more people in the BSF and Army. “My request to him is that instead of just speaking in front of the media, he should meet Rajnath Singh ji and request him to recruit people in defence, in the Border Security Force and make our border security more strong. After that, I think the number of people coming from outside will decrease,” he said.
Meanwhile, the auto-rickshaw driver Bhajan Singh Rana, who rushed Saif Ali Khan to hospital, shared details of his meeting with Saif Ali Khan. He said, “I was invited today, which felt really good. There was nothing special, it was just a normal meeting. I told him, ‘Just get well soon, I had prayed for you earlier, and I will continue to pray’”. He also confirmed that Saif Ali Khan gave him Rs 51,000 for his help. His mother Sharmila Tagore also met Rana and thanked him for the help.
Singer Mika Singh has announced Rs 1 lakh reward for auto-rickshaw driver Bhajan Singh, who promptly and safely took the Bollywood actor to Lilavati hospital after he suffered a brutal knife attack at his Bandra home on January 16. Taking to social media, Mika also urged Saif to increase the reward money of the driver to Rs 11 lakh. Reports had earlier suggested that Saif’s team rewarded the auto driver with Rs 50,000.