More than 40 hours after a gruesome attack on Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, the Mumbai police had not achieved any breakthrough in the sensational case as of late Friday evening. Meanwhile, the actor was making a rapid recovery from the grievous wounds he sustained in the knife attack by an intruder early Thursday.
On Friday, Saif, 54, was moved from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to a special room at Lilavati Hospital. The police detained one suspect in connection with the attack, but released him after questioning, finding that he had no connection to the case.
“The person who was brought to the Bandra police station is not related to the Saif Ali Khan case. We released him after questioning. No one has yet been arrested in connection with yesterday’s incident,” a senior police officer said.
Meanwhile, doctors attending to Saif at Lilavati Hospital expressed satisfaction with his progress. “Saif Ali Khan is doing excellently. We made him walk, and he can walk well. There is no problem and not much pain,” said Dr. Nitin Dange of Lilavati Hospital.
The actor had sustained six stab wounds, including one to his spine, while grappling with an intruder who had broken into his 12th-floor apartment in the posh “Satguru Sharan” building located at the junction of 29th and 24th Roads in Bandra (W), northwest Mumbai. The knife attack occurred between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Thursday, following a failed burglary attempt by the yet-to-be-identified intruder.
After his admission to Lilavati Hospital, Saif underwent surgery to remove a knife lodged in his spine and to seal a spinal fluid leakage.
“The actor was brought to our hospital with six injuries, two of which were deep. We carried out a surgery near his spine and removed a 2.5-inch piece of knife from the spine,” said Dr. Niraj Uttamani, Chief Operating Officer of Lilavati Hospital, on Thursday.
Contrary to earlier reports suggesting that Saif’s elder son, Ibrahim (23), had rushed his bleeding father to the hospital, it has now emerged that Saif himself took an autorickshaw to Lilavati Hospital. His eight-year-old son, Taimur, accompanied him in the rickshaw.
Confirming how Saif reached the hospital, autorickshaw driver Bhajan Singh Rana (47) told a television channel: “I was passing by the building when I suddenly heard a cry for help from a lady (apparently Saif’s housemaid) standing near the main gate asking me to stop the vehicle.”
“When I stopped the vehicle, the actor, whom I did not recognize at first, walked up to my autorickshaw and sat down. There was a small child (Taimur) and one more person with him at that time. He (Saif) appeared calm and collected throughout our journey to the hospital. The only thing he asked me during the ride was, ‘Kitna time lagega?’ (How long will it take to reach the hospital?),” Rana said.
Doctors at Lilavati Hospital have hailed Saif as a “real-life hero,” noting that despite being in deep pain and covered in blood, he managed to reach the hospital on his own in an autorickshaw, barely an hour after the attack.
The incident took place sometime after 2 a.m. on Thursday in the 12th-floor flat of Saif’s “Satguru Sharan” building. A housemaid at Saif’s residence, identified as Eliyama Phillipes alias Lima, was the first to see the intruder and raised an alarm, prompting Saif to rush out of his bedroom to investigate.
Seeing Saif, the knife-wielding intruder, suspected to have broken into the actor’s home for a burglary, attacked him. During the ensuing struggle, the actor was stabbed multiple times before the assailant fled the flat.
Following the attack, the Bandra Police and Crime Branch set up 10 investigative teams to track down the assailant.
Speaking to the media, Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Home, Yogesh Kadam, said: “There is no involvement of any criminal gang in the attack on Saif Ali Khan. The preliminary probe suggests that robbery was the motive behind the incident.”
“The police have identified one person from the CCTV footage. A suspect was detained for questioning today. We suspect the involvement of others, and the police are searching for them,” Kadam said.
The suspect detained by the Bandra police was later released, as he had no connection to the incident.
