
Saif Ali Khan Attack: Accused a Bangladeshi National, Remanded to 5-day Police Custody
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 19: A Mumbai court on Sunday remanded to city police custody for five days the man arrested on the charge of attacking the Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan after unlawfully entering into the actor’s house in Bandra West in the wee hours of Thursday.
The 31-year old accused Shariful Islam Shehzad, who is claimed to be a Bangladeshi national, was arrested early on Sunday morning after police tracked him down to Thane. Shariful, police have said, crossed into India illegally and had been living in Mumbai for the past few months under the false name of Bijoy Das.
The court granted his police custody till January 24 for thorough investigation into the case after observing that the police’s contention of an international conspiracy cannot be ruled out. Police told the court that the alleged attacker was a Bangladeshi national and there was need to find the motive behind his act. Police also told court they needed to find out if there was an international conspiracy linked to the case.
Accepting the police’s contention after perusing documents on record, the court said the prosecution’s submission of international conspiracy “cannot be said to be impossible.” He was produced in the holiday court in Bandra at 1:30 p.m. to seek his police remand, the official said.
The police said Shariful did not have any valid proof of Indian residence and was seizures show that he was a Bangladeshi national. He had changed his name to Bijoy Das upon entry into India and was allegedly working in a house keeping agency, Mumbai police added.
A labour contractor helped the Mumbai police track down the attacker in the neighbouring Thane district, an official said. The official said the crime branch and the local police had formed multiple teams to trace the accused, who had eluded them for more than two days. He said the labour contractor gave the police all the details about the attacker, and based on his direction, the police traced Shariful down to a labour camp in a forested area in Thane, from where he was apprehended.
Hours after his arrest, he was produced in court. Police told the court that Shariful entered India illegally and added that they were investigating who helped him and aided him here. The court is also probing the accused’s acquaintances in Mumbai. Seeking Shariful’s 14-day custody, police said they found out he was a Bangladeshi national after his arrest.
The 54-year-old actor has suffered six stab injuries, one of them near his spine, in the shocking attack. Police have said the knife used in the attack broke into three pieces, one of which is yet to be found. One of the shards has been recovered from Mr Khan’s body.
Police also told the court that they suspect that Shariful has hidden the clothes he wore that day because they had blood stains after his fight with Mr Khan. They said the clothes need to be recovered so that blood samples could be matched.
The public prosecutor said the accused was aware of the fact that the Bandra locality where Saif Ali Khan lives with his family was home to several celebrities and tight security was in place. Despite this, he managed to break into the actor’s house, police said, stressing that the accused acted on a plan.
The lawyer representing the accused told the court that the allegations against him were false and that the matter is in focus because a celebrity has been targeted. The accused’s lawyer said he was being made a scapegoat in the high profile case. Dinesh Prajapati, who represented the accused, told the media, “We have said in his defence that nothing has been recovered from him. They have not produced any document to prove he is a Bangladeshi national.
The police on Saturday had arrested one Aakash Kailash Kannojia, who was travelling by the Mumbai-Howrah Jnaneswari Express at the Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh on tip-off from Mumbai police. “Around 2 pm, when the train reached Durg, the suspect – who was sitting in the general compartment – deboarded and was immediately taken into custody. He is being interrogated,” the Railway Protection Force (RPF) officials had said on Saturday.
“The Mumbai Police had sent the suspect’s photo, train number and location to the RPF, after which he was caught,” they said. The man was travelling without a ticket. He, however, was released on Sunday afternoon after Shariful was arrested from Thane.
Police had formed 30 teams to track down the accused, who scanned CCTV footage of the building in Bandra where Saif Ali Khan, his wife and actor Kareena Kapoor Khan and their sons live. They noticed the suspect leaving the building after the attack that left the actor seriously injured. Police then scanned several hours of footage from across the city to locate the suspect. During this tenuous exercise, they found a footage captured by a CCTV camera in DN Nagar in Andheri. They saw the suspect getting off the 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, sources in police said. A police team went to this accommodation and 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 phone location.
The accused, police found, had been hiding in a thicket on a deserted road in Thane. Police first surrounded him from all sides and then took him into custody. Police have said they did not find any Indian document from Shariful, but found evidence that establish he is a Bangladeshi national who crossed over illegally.
During questioning, Shariful told police that he saw his images on TV news after the incident and fled to Thane. He switched off his phone and hide near a labour camp in Thane. Police tracked down his phone’s last known location and reached Thane.
Shariful has claimed that he did not know that he was breaking into Saif Ali Khan’s home, a police officer said. Cops, however, suspect that he was out of work and planned to rob the actor’s home for a big haul.
The accused has told police that he used the rear staircase and air-conditioning ducts to get inside the building. He has also said it was the first time he had entered the building. Police have said they may recreate the scene with the accused.
The actor, meanwhile, is recovering well after he was rushed to Lilavati Hospital late on Wednesday night with six stab injuries, one of them near his spine.