Suspect held for Saif stabbing, claims he didn’t know he had attacked the actor
Police say that he is a Bangladeshi national who worked in Mumbai pubs and changed his name to ‘Bijoy Das’
A UPI payment for an omelette, a call to a friend, a call from his former employer, and a ton of CCTV footage has led to the arrest of the intruder suspected of stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan in his Bandra home early on Thursday.

The suspect, an unemployed 30-year-old who had worked as housekeeping staff in pubs and restaurants in Mumbai and Thane, was picked up early on Sunday while he was asleep in mangroves near Kasarvadavali in Thane.
He was arrested in a joint operation of the Mumbai and Thane police, who had dispatched a team of 100 policemen to nab him.
“We have arrested Shariful Islam Shehzad Mohammed Rohilla Amin Fakir, 30, alias Bijoy Das, who hails from Jhalakathi district in Bangladesh,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dixit Gedam.
Police said Shariful had worked for housekeeping contractors in various pubs but had been unemployed for over a month. He told police he had learnt that the locality where Saif lived had many wealthy residents, and he had conducted a reconnaissance of the area many times before be committed the home invasion, intending to steal.
Shariful also claimed he had no idea he had entered the home of the Bollywood A-lister and learnt he had attacked Saif only later.
Initial clues
Police said their search for Saif’s assailant began with CCTV footage from a camera that captured him as he left via the fire escape in Saif’s building. Thereafter, he was identified in CCTV footage near the National College bus stand on Linking Road, at Bandra station, boarding a local train, at Dadar station, and even making a purchase at a mobile phone shop in Dadar.
“After that, the trail disappeared but we picked it up again, when we discovered the suspect had walked towards Worli. We found CCTV footage showing he had paid an omelette seller via UPI. That’s how we got his cell number,” said a police officer.
This hastened the search for Shariful. Police found that while on the run he had kept in touch with someone in Kasarvadavali, in Thane, over the phone. “Meanwhile, we got a call from a certain Jeetendra Pandey, who claimed he had identified the accused in the footage as someone he had hired in the past. He also shared the number of the suspect,” said a police officer.
Arrested from mangroves
Meanwhile, Thane Police had detained Shariful’s Thane contact, a 19-year-old man, near Brahmin Society. The teenager pointed the police to a labour camp in Kasarvadavali, where the suspect had intended to hide.
A 100-strong team of the Thane and Mumbai Police went to the labour camp and questioned around 30 residents in a joint combing operation late on Saturday night. Thane’s Joint Commissioner of Police, Dnyaneshwar Chavhan, said, “Our police station was informed by the Mumbai police, and accordingly, we assisted them in nabbing the accused.”
Isar Mohammed, a labour camp resident who works on the MMRDA Metro project, said, “The police arrived around 9 pm, called us out, searched our rooms and checked our identity cards. They showed us a photo of the accused and asked if we knew him, but none of us did. We were questioned until midnight. We were already exhausted from working extra hours, and because of one wrongdoer, we had to stay awake until midnight.”
Drawing a blank at the camp, the 100-strong police team decided to scour the mangroves nearby. “We found him sleeping in the dense mangroves and arrested him,” said a police officer.
“The suspect told us he had spent a day in the Worli Koliwada after the stabbing incident. It was only when he watched the news on YouTube that he realised he had attacked Saif and so he decided to flee,” said the police officer.
It was then that Shariful headed for Thane as he knew a friend who lived there. He had also asked a former employer for some money so that he could head to Bangladesh, police added.
Accused had stolen from Worli pub
Police have learnt that Shariful had worked as housekeeping staff at a pub in Worli, in Mumbai. They also learnt that he had stolen some money from one of them. When the pub complained to Shariful’s contractor, he was transferred to Thane, where he worked at another pub called Blabber All Day. “He worked there from November to December and was jobless after that,” said a police officer.
Bangladeshi national
Police claim that Shariful is a Bangladeshi national and hails from Jhalokathi District in Southern Bangladesh. “We have found an image of his birth certificate in his phone. That’s why we decided to apply Section 46 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, and sections of the Foreigners Order, 1948,” said a police officer.
He added that at some point, Shariful had changed his name to ‘Bijoy Das’ and even made some fake documents to support his claim of being an Indian citizen.
