The attack on Saif Ali Khan threatened to spiral into an international issue on Friday after the father of the Bangladeshi man arrested for the attack on the Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan said he would approach that country's foreign ministry and the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.

Mohammad Ruhul, the father of the arrested Shariful Islam, maintained that the man seen in the CCTV camera footage was not Shariful and that his son was being framed.

"I will get in touch with the Bangaldeshi foreign ministry and also seek help from the Indian High Commission in Dhaka for the release of my son," Ruhul told PTI over the phone from Bangladesh.

Ruhul, a local leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), worked at the People's Jute Mill in Khulna district before retiring to his native village in Jhalokathi district.

He said that he learned about his son's arrest through Facebook and news channels. "The police have not said anything to us," Ruhul told PTI.

He said that his son, Shariful, entered India between the last week of March and the first week of April last year.

A Mumbai court on Friday extended till January 29 the police custody of Shariful. The police told the court that they would conduct facial recognition of the man to ascertain if he was the person seen in the CCTV footage from the actor's building in Bandra.

Shariful, arrested from Thane city, changed his name to Vijay Das after illegally entering India last year, the police had earlier said.

The 54-year-old actor was stabbed repeatedly by the knife-wielding intruder inside his 12th floor apartment in the western Mumbai posh suburb Bandra in the early hours of January 16.

Saif reportedly told the police that he had locked his attacker inside his son Jeh’s room despite being stabbed several times.

It is unclear how the attacker managed to escape and be caught on CCTV camera in the stairs.

Ruhul said it would not have been possible for his son to enter the home of a star as big as Saif and commit such a crime.

"In the video footage we saw, the man has hair till the eyebrows. My son doesn't wear his hair like that. He is 30 years old and has never kept his hair this long, not even as a teenager," Ruhul said.

“India is a huge country, it is quite possible that one person would bear some resemblance to another person,” he said.

"But the CCTV camera photos that I saw of the [accused] person do not match my son."

He also alleged that his son was being framed by a "third party".

He added: "There might be a conspiracy."

He said Shariful used to work at a hotel in Mumbai and sent a portion of the salary he received by the 12th of every month. The father also said the now-deposed Sheikh Hasina's re-election in January 2024 had forced Shariful to leave Bangladesh.

After Hasina became prime minister again, Shariful realised that he could not survive in Bangladesh. He saw other people leave Bangladesh for other countries and earn a living there. With this in mind, he went to India, Ruhul said.

"He didn't have any documentation. One who has documents can go and work anywhere. Having valid documents has a lot of advantages," he said.

Shariful lived in constant fear because he did not have any documents, his father said. "There is no question of him roaming around."

Ruhul is the area vice president of a BNP union. His eldest son is the organisation secretary of the BNP. Shariful was a party member as well.

Police on Friday told a court here that they needed to conduct a facial recognition test of Shariful to ascertain that he was the person seen in the CCTV footage.

Public prosecutors K.S. Patil and Prasad Joshi told the court that "facial recognition test" of the accused was needed to be done at a Forensic Science Laboratory to ascertain that he was the same person seen in the CCTV footage recovered from the staircase of Khan's building.

The magistrate's court extended Shariful’s police custody till January 29.

Defence lawyers questioned the actor's version of the incident, asking why he did not call police immediately.

The police also told the court that they need to match the footprints of the accused with those found at Khan's residence, and the shoes the accused was wearing at the time have not been recovered yet.

A missing part of the knife used in the crime too was yet to be found, the police said, adding that the accused was not cooperating with investigation.

A driving licence issued in Bangladesh has been recovered from him, confirming that he is a native of the neighbouring country, the prosecution told the court.

In-depth investigation was needed to find out whether he had any other motive for committing this crime, the police said.

Further, the police need to find the persons who helped him obtain fake documents like Aadhaar card and PAN card, it argued.

The accused's lawyers, Dinesh Prajapati and Sandeep Sherkahne, opposed the plea for further police custody, and questioned the credibility of the incident.

Saif Ali Khan had enough time – after the attacker entered his house – but did not call the police for help, they claimed.

Following the knife attack in the early hours of January 16 that caused injuries on the neck and near his spine, Khan was admitted to the nearby Lilavati Hospital where he underwent two surgeries. He was discharged from the private hospital on January 21.