Mumbai:

Bangladesh national Shariful Islam Shehzad, who allegedly broke into actor Saif Ali Khan’s home to commit robbery and stabbed him multiple times during a fight, wanted to flee to his home country after the incident, police have found.

According to police sources, Shariful had planned to first travel to Howrah near Kolkata and then proceed to Bangladesh when he realised that police were after him. He tried to arrange for a train ticket to Howrah, but travel agents demanded more money because of the short notice. Before he could get his hands on a ticket, Shariful was arrested from Thane.

Cops are now tracking down all the travel agents he spoke to question them as part of the investigation into the high-profile case. The actor, who has suffered six stab injuries in the shocking attack, returned home yesterday after he was discharged from the hospital. Doctors, it is learnt, have advised him bed rest for a week and asked him not to receive any visitor now to prevent infection.

Cops Piece Together Sequence Of Events

Mumbai Police, which was left red-faced after the late-night attack in an area home to several celebrities, is going all out to get to the root of the case at the earliest. A police team took Shariful to the actor’s Bandra home yesterday to recreate the crime.

Police have found that on Wednesday night, the intruder scaled wall of the compound to approach the 12-storeyed building the actor lives in. He found the security guards of the building asleep. He then used the back staircase and air-conditioning duct to enter Mr Khan’s home through a window in one of the bathrooms. Shariful has told police that he had removed his shoes and kept them in his bag to prevent any noise. He had also switched off his phone.

Mr Khan and his house helps managed to lock Shariful into a room after the stabbing, but he escaped through the air-conditioning duct and fled down the stairs.

Police have found Shariful’s face cover from the room of Mr Khan’s younger son Jahangir, where the actor and the intruder had clashed. This face cover is being sent for forensic testing.

What Happened That Night

Eliyama Philip, a nanny for Saif’s sons, has told the police that she was the first to spot the intruder. The 56-year-old has said she was woken up by some noises around 2 am. She saw the bathroom door open and the light on and assumed that Kareena Kapoor Khan was checking on Jahangir or Jeh.

“… then I went back to sleep but, again, I realised something was wrong. So I woke up again and saw a man come out of the bathroom and go into the boy’s room. I quickly got up and went to Jeh’s room. The attacker then put his finger near his mouth and said ‘Don’t make any noise, nobody will go out’ in Hindi,” Ms Philip has said. “When I rushed to pick up Jeh, the man, armed with a wooden stick and a long Hexa blade. ran towards me and tried attacking me, she said.

“I tried to block the attack by putting my hand forward, but the blade hit me near the wrists of both my hands and on the middle finger of my left hand,” she said. “At that time, I asked him, ‘What do you want?’. He said, ‘I want money.’ I asked, ‘How much do you want?’ He said in English, ‘one crore’,” Ms Philip has said in her statement.

Hearing Ms Philip scream, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan rushed out of their room. When Mr Khan asked the intruder what he wanted, he attacked him with a wooden object and the hexa blade, Ms Philip said.

“Saif Sir somehow managed to get away from him and we all ran out of the room and pulled the door of the room,” she said, adding that everyone then went to the upper floor of their home. The intruder later escaped, she has said.

How Accused Was Caught

Police formed 30 teams to track down the accused. The cops scanned CCTV footage of the building and noticed the suspect leaving after the attack. Several hours of footage from across the city were scanned to find a match. During this tenuous exercise, cops found footage from DN Nagar in Andheri. They saw the suspect getting off a 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. A police team 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 location. The accused had been hiding in a thicket on a deserted road in Thane. Police surrounded him from all sides and then took him into custody.

After his arrest, they found that he was a Bangladesh national who had illegally crossed into India months back.

Saif Ali Khan returned home from hospital

Saif Now Back Home

The 54-year-old actor returned home after spending five days at Lilavati Hospital, where he was admitted after the chilling attack. Mr Khan was captured waving to the media and his fans before entering home last afternoon. The actor suffered six stab injuries, one of them on his back. The knife, doctors have said, missed his spinal cord by just 2 mm. His spinal fluid had started leaking and a surgery was done to fix that. The actor also suffered injuries on his face and arm and has undergone plastic surgery. Doctors have said he is recovering well but advised him rest for now. Mr Khan is expected to record a statement with police now that he is back home.