Fingerprints from the crime scene at Saif Ali Khan’s apartment do not match those of the arrested Bangladeshi suspect, a newspaper has reported.

Social media users had already flagged the “stark difference” between the facial features of the arrested man, Mohammad Shariful Islam Shahzad, and the suspect seen in CCTV footage from Saif’s apartment complex.

Shariful’s father, who lives in Bangladesh, too has been reported as saying the man in the CCTV footage — circulated widely after Saif’s January 16 stabbing — does not resemble his son.

The Mid-day newspaper reported on Sunday that 19 fingerprint samples had been taken from the crime scene and none of them matched those of the arrested accused.

Sources said Mumbai police had on Friday sent the fingerprints to the fingerprint bureau of the state criminal investigation department. A system-generated report is said to have declared that the fingerprints do not match Shariful’s.

It is learnt that the Mumbai police have sent more samples for testing.

Asked about the media report, a Mumbai police officer insisted that “a preliminary report” had found a fingerprint match.

“More samples have been sent for further testing and we are still awaiting the final fingerprint report. A preliminary report had shown a match with the arrested accused,” the officer told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.

He said the police had collected the fingerprints from several objects at the crime scene, including the bathroom window, pipes, and a ladder that the intruder allegedly used to enter the actor’s flat.

The intruder had sneaked into Saif’s 12th-floor flat between 2am and 2.30am on January 16, according to the police complaint by Eliyamma Philip, nanny to the actor’s youngest son, the four-year-old Jeh.

Philip told the police she was the first to spot the intruder, having been woken by a noise. The man allegedly tried to hold Jeh and Philip hostage and demanded ₹1 crore before assaulting the nanny. When Saif confronted the intruder, he was stabbed multiple times.

Saif was rushed to Lilavati Hospital in an auto-rickshaw. A 2.5-inch fragment of a blade was removed from his back after five hours of surgery. He was discharged from the hospital last week.

A day after Shahzad’s arrest, deputy commissioner of police Dixit Gedam had rubbished the claims that the suspect caught on CCTV on the day of the assault and the man in custody were different people.

“The questions being raised over the difference between the facial features of the arrested person and the one in the footage are totally rubbish,” he had told this newspaper.

“The media has only two pieces of footage of the accused, which had been released earlier. We have several videos of him from different angles, including some in high resolution, which clearly establish the identity of the accused.”

Hours after Shahzad’s arrest on January 19, the police had claimed he was trying to rob Saif’s home without realising that it belonged to a Bollywood actor.

However, the police told a court shortly afterwards that they suspected an “international conspiracy” behind the incident.