Mumbai: Mumbai police on Monday arrested the main suspect in the knifing of Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan. The suspect was in the labour camp behind the TCS call centre in Mumbai’s Thane West area. The incident took place on January 15, when an assailant broke into Khan’s residence and battered the artist with a sharp object, hurting him ‘very seriously’ and causing Khan to undergo surgery.
He has undergone a string of names during questioning, which has made him evasive and difficult to question. Initially he claimed to be from Nadia district in West Bengal; subsequently, police said, he gave his name as Mohammad Sajjad. He may have slipped in from Bangladesh, as he has no identification documents, police suspect.
After the attack, the suspect turned off his phone, then turned it back on long enough to make a call before powering it down once more. Police were then able to trace his mobile phone activity, revealing his presence at a number of locations. Though he tried to evade police through multiple aliases—Vijay Das and Mohammad Ilyas—police arrested him under mobile tower data.
The remarks by Jaishankar underscore the increasing worry about cross-border terrorism and its impact on regional stability. Pakistan’s support for terrorism was a means to isolate it within the subcontinent and has proven negative to its own political structure, he said.
The police say that Das will be taken to court soon, where they will look to remand him for further questioning over possible motives for the attack. Police have not ruled out the possibility that Khan’s attacker could have had accomplices who were involved in planning the assault on him.
The incident has brought up alarm in the film industry and among fans, calling for more security measures for public figures. Mumbai Police continues to investigate and is on guard to protect and get justice for its citizenry.