The Bangladeshi national, who has been arrested on charges of stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan after breaking into his residence, entered India through Meghalaya seven months ago and stayed in West Bengal for a few weeks before he moved to Mumbai in search of a job, police sources have revealed.
Mumbai Police officers involved in the interrogation of the accused, Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad, said the 30-year-old crossed the Dawki river, along the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, to illegally enter India. He then changed his name to Bijoy Das and began living in the country, they added.
Police had earlier said that Shehzad is a native of Jhalokathi district in Bangladesh.
According to a police official, Shehzad said that during his stay in Bengal, he used a local resident’s Aadhaar card to procure a mobile phone SIM card before moving to Mumbai.
The SIM card was registered in the name of one Khukumoni Jahangir Sekha of Bengal, the official said.
After reaching Mumbai, the officer added, the accused chose to work in places where he was not required to furnish any documents. “He studied till Class 12 in Bangladesh and had come to India in search of a job,” the officer said.
Saif Ali Khan suffered grievous injuries after he was stabbed six times, reportedly by Shehzad during a failed burglary attempt at the actor’s 12th-floor residence in “Satguru Sharan” building in upscale Bandra in the early hours of January 16. The doctors who performed an emergency surgery had removed a 2.5-inch piece of a broken knife from his spine afterwards.
If the knife had pierced 2 mm deeper, it could have caused a severe injury, the doctors had noted. The actor was discharged from hospital and returned home on Tuesday.
Shehzad, sources earlier said, told police that he stabbed the actor in his back multiple times in an attempt to free himself after he had grabbed hold of him. He also said that he hid in the garden of the building housing Mr Khan flat for around two hours before fleeing the area.
In her statement to the police, Mr Khan’s wife and actor Kareena Kapoor Khan recalled the attack on her husband and said she saw the intruder stab him repeatedly. “The attacker was aggressive. I saw him attack Saif repeatedly…Our priority was to take Saif to the hospital,” she said.
A nurse caring for the couple’s younger son Jehangir (Jeh), Eliyama Philips – who first encountered the intruder – said the accused had demanded Rs 1 crore.
Multiple teams of the police and the crime branch worked on several inputs and analysed footage from several CCTV cameras to track down Mr Khan’s attacker.
After over 70 hours of an intense manhunt, Shehzad was arrested from near Hiranandani Estate in Kasarvadavali in Thane, about 35 kilometres from Mr Khan’s house in Bandra, on Sunday. He was subsequently remanded in police custody for five days.