
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 20: Using the Google Pay to pay for a “paratha” for his breakfast proved to be his undoing. That is how the police got the exact location of Shariful Islam Shehzad, reportedly a Bangladesh national, who has been arrested on the charge of murderous assault on the Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan at the actor’s house in Bandra West in Mumbai in the wee hours of Thursday.
Sources said teams of police looking for Shehzad zeroed in on his location after he paid for a paratha via a Google Pay transaction, presumably on his mobile phone. He used to work at the same restaurant earlier and the reportedly plan to speak to the person who had hired Shehzad, a man called Pandey.
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.
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.
The hunt included forming 30 police teams, each following separate leads and lines of investigation, including scanning hours of security footage, including those from Saif Ali Khan’s building. 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 where he slept in the Bandra area till 7am on the day of the attack, after which he made his way on to a train to Worli.
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 on TV news bulletins. The last-recorded location of the phone was from Thane.
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.
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. 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.”
“They have not produced any document to prove he is a Bangladeshi national,” his lawyer said. However, the suspect himself reportedly confessed his crime to the police.
According to police, Shariful slept soundly after the attack and changed his clothes before heading to Worli. “The accused had a restful sleep at a bus stop, changed his clothes and reached Bandra railway station, from where he travelled to Dadar and later to Worli before heading to Thane city.
Shehzad had taken all precautions to evade the police but got caught because of his backpack, he said. The official said the police had observed the backpack the accused was carrying in the CCTV footage they analysed, and this gave a direction to the probe. Later, with the help of CCTV, drum data and online payment, the police trace the accused.
With the help of the image of the accused’s face captured on CCTV, the police analysed persons with criminal records who looked like him and detained a few suspects. But when nothing came out of this, they checked the CCTV footage from the Bandra area again, the official said. The accused was seen in a CCTV footage walking towards the Bandra railway station around 7 a.m., and he had changed his clothes, he said.
Shehzad, who had worked in a pub in Worli in the past, stayed on the premises on the night of January 16 and went unnoticed. The next day, he approached a labour contractor in the area for work and left for Thane. The official said the labour contractor provided Shehzad’s mobile number to the police, and it was found that he had done some online transactions while on the run.
A court has remanded the accused in five-day police custody after observing that the police’s contention of an international conspiracy cannot be ruled out. Shehzad has been charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Sections 311 (robbery or dacoity with the intent to cause grievous hurt or death), 331(4) (house-breaking) and other offences as well as provisions of the Passport Act.
The autorickshaw driver who transported profusely bleeding Saif Ali Khan swiftly to Lilavati Hospital and has immensely contributed in saving the actor’s life, refused any payment from Saif for this act of service. “I was called there (Bandra Police Station) for questioning…I did not think about money that night…I have not been contacted by Kareena Kapoor or anyone else so far. I have not had any conversation with them,” Bhajan Singh, the auto-rickshaw driver said.
The auto-rickshaw driver has described the events and narrated his account. “His back was hurt. I felt very bad because he was bleeding. I had no idea that Saif Ali Khan was sitting in my rickshaw. I thought that some injured person must have been sitting there…When Saif and his son got down from the rickshaw after going to Lilavati Hospital, I realised that the star actor was sitting in the rickshaw,” he said.
“My rickshaw arrived at the emergency gate just as an ambulance was departing. Seeing the commotion, the hospital staff immediately rushed towards us. By then, they had realised it was Saif Ali Khan. Blood was flowing profusely from a wound in his back,” he added.
Elaborating on his account, he said, “When Saif approached my rickshaw, he walked slowly, accompanied by two of his children, including his youngest son, Taimur. Two women, with quiet efficiency, helped him into the rickshaw.” “I was completely focused, my only concern being to get the injured person to the hospital swiftly. While we were in the rickshaw, Saif asked how long it would be until we reached the hospital. Seven or eight minutes later, I parked the rickshaw at the hospital gate,” he added.
According to some reports, Saif’s eldest son, Ibrahim Ali Khan took his father to the hospital. However, one of the doctors at Lilavati Hospital mentioned that Saif arrived at the hospital in an auto-rickshaw with his 8-year-old son, Taimur Ali Khan.