Police suspect the man who stabbed actor Saif Ali Khan in his Bandra residence could be a Bangladeshi immigrant who had been using a fake Indian identity card. However, he is said to have told police that he belonged to West Bengal.
DCP Zone 9 Dikshit Gedam identified the accused Mohammad Sharif Ul Islam Shehz aka Vijay Das. He is said to have entered India via the West Bengal border six months ago. Gedam added that there is primary evidence to anticipate that the accused is a Bangladeshi national who sneaked into India. Shehz does not have a valid Indian identification document, police said.
He came to Mumbai six months ago and had been working in a housekeeping agency. The DCP Gedam added that relevant sections of the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act in addition to other BNS sections will be added.
He was arrested on Saturday from a pub in the Labour Camp area of Thane. He is said to have confessed to police that he was the one who broke into Saif's and Kareena Kapoor's house in Bandra and stabbed the actor.
The accused is currently kept in detention at Khar Police Station. Mumbai Police sources said the accused used multiple names, including Vijay Das, Bijoy Das, and Mohammed Iliyas and was working as a housekeeping staff at a restaurant. Realising that the police were zeroing in on him, the accused hid in the bushes of the labour camp.
Mumbai police also will conduct a press briefing at 9 am on Sunday.
Meanwhile, police recovered a piece of knife used to attack Saif from his residence at the 12th-floor residence in the 'Satguru Sharan' building in upscale Bandra. The doctors who performed an emergency surgery on the actor had removed a 2.5-inch piece of a broken knife from his spine afterwards.
On Saturday, the police had apprehended a 31-year-old suspect at Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh in this connection. However, there is no word so far about his alleged involvement.
The police had shared a picture of the accused who was nabbed while travelling by the Jnaneshwari Express which runs between Mumbai Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) to Kolkata Shalimar. Aakash Kailash Kannojia, the detained man, was "still a suspect", Mumbai police said in a statement later.