Saif Ali Khan pounced on attacker to save his son, say Mumbai police

Police on Friday recorded the statement of 54-year-old Saif Ali Khan regarding the burglary attempt at his home on January 16

MUMBAI: Bollywood superstar Saif Ali Khan sustained injuries on his hand and back when he jumped to his youngest son Jehangir’s defence on the night of the foiled burglary attempt at his apartment in Bandra West, he told police officers investigating the incident on Friday.

Saif Ali Khan with sons Taimur and Jehangir

Meanwhile, Shariful Islam Shehzad, the 30-year-old Bangladeshi national who allegedly carried out the attack and was arrested from Thane more than 48 hours later, was on Friday further remanded in police custody till January 29. This was after police informed a Bandra court that Shenzad had procured Indian identity documents like Aadhaar and PAN under the name Bijoy Das from an agent who helped him cross the Indo-Bangladesh border and travel to Mumbai but was not revealing the agent’s name.

In the statement recorded by the police on Friday, 54-year-old Saif Ali Khan said he and his wife, actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, were about to go to bed after she returned home at 1.33am on January 16 when they heard Jehangir’s nanny, Junu, who slept in the same room as him, screaming.

“The actor and his wife rushed to Jehangir’s bedroom when they heard the staff screaming,” said a police officer.

By this time, Jehangir’s nurse, Elliyamma Phillips, had confronted the intruder, who police say entered the actors’ 11th and 12th floor duplex apartment through the balcony and then the bathroom window around 10 minutes after Kareena returned home. He had told Philips that he wanted ₹1 crore and attacked her in a bid to keep her quiet, only to send Junu bolting out of the bedroom, screaming for help.

“As the actors hastily reached the bedroom, they saw Philips injured while Jehangir crying with fear. Saif pounced on the intruder to protect his son – he grabbed the intruder from the front but was stabbed, first on his and then his back, where a broken piece of the knife got lodged. The back injury sent him into a state of shock,” said the police officer quoted earlier.

The 54-year-old actor underwent surgery at Lilavati Hospital in Bandra to remove a broken knife piece lodged near his spine and was discharged on Tuesday.

In his statement, Saif said he, Kareena, Jehangir and his nanny and nurse rushed out of the bedroom after he was stabbed. They closed the bedroom door behind them assuming they had locked the intruder in, but other staff male members did not find him there later when they looked later, the actor told the police.

“It was only when Saif was in the hospital that he learnt about the intruder demanding ₹1 crore from Phillips. He had no idea about this earlier and was only trying to defend his son when he got stabbed violently,” the officer said.