In a statement to Mumbai police on Thursday night, Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan said that he had locked his attacker inside his son’s room despite being stabbed several times.
The Bollywood star was severely injured by the man who had broken into his home in the western Mumbai suburb of Bandra in the early hours of January 16.
Saif said when he stepped down to the 11th floor flat where his sons Jeh and Taimur live with their nanny, he saw the intruder had a knife in his hand and tried to overpower him.
“Sensing a threat, I attempted to grab him,” the Bollywood star reportedly told the police. “After a while, during the scuffle, he started stabbing me. He stabbed me in my back, neck and hands. The caretaker had managed to leave the room with Jeh by then. I somehow attempted to overpower the attacker and locked him inside the room.”
There is no clarity yet whether the actor has identified Shariful Fakir, the Bangladeshi national arrested by the Mumbai police for the attack on Saif.
The Mumbai police had released a grab from the CCTV footage inside the building where Saif lives on the top floors with his wife and fellow Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor. The star couple’s two young sons live in the floor them below with their nanny, Eliam Philip.
The accused Shariful’s father, Ruhul, had claimed on Thursday that the man seen on the CCTV footage was not his son.
Many people have also pointed to the difference in the physical appearance of the arrested accused with the man in the two images released by the cops who have claimed that the accused has confessed to the attack.
If the attacker was locked inside the kid’s room, how did he manage to escape and take the stairs where he was caught on the CCTV camera?
Narrating the sequence of events, Saif reportedly told the cops that he was with Kareena in their 12th floor flat when he heard a commotion from the flat below between 2.30am and 2.40am.
“I stepped down to the 11th floor, where both my sons and their caretaker stays, after hearing some noises. As I reached Jeh’s room, I saw his caretaker talking to a stranger in a loud voice," Saif told the police.
“Kareena and my sons were scared seeing me injured and the flow of blood. It was then when I was taken to the hospital," he reportedly said.
Immediately after the attack, a severely bleeding Saif went to the hospital in an autorickshaw and then walked into the Lilavati hospital, refusing to take a stretcher. He underwent surgery to remove a part of the knifeblade that had broken off still stuck to his spine.
Saif walked out of the hospital on Tuesday and waved to his fans, prompting Maharashtra’s BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) leaders Nitish Rane and Sanjay Nirupam to wonder aloud whether the attack really happened.
Soon after his discharge from the hospital, Saif had met the autorickshaw driver Bhajan Singh Rana, whom he has apparently promised to gift a new vehicle.
A Mumbai court on Friday extended till January 29 the police custody of the Bangladeshi man arrested for stabbing the actor.
Police sought his custody for seven more days from the court, arguing further investigation into some crucial aspects of the case was required. The court allowed the police plea and extended his custody till January 29.