Police probe: Saif attack accused used Bengal resident’s Aadhaar to get SIM

V Narayan & Nitasha Natu (THE TIMES OF INDIA; January 20, 2025)

Mumbai: After a 72-hour-long manhunt during which suspects were picked up from places as far apart as Mumbai, Virar, Thane and Durg, police finally found the man who stabbed actor Saif Ali Khan early Sunday. He was hiding in a marshy area dotted with vegetation on the edge of Thane city.

A 150-member team of Mumbai and Thane police had narrowed down the search on the basis of CCTV footage and a tip-off to Kavesar near Ghodbunder Road. Carrying out a combing operation over shrubland and nullahs through the night, the team found the accused, a Bangladeshi illegal identified as Shariful Islam Shehzad Mohammed Rohilla Amin Fakir, 30, when a policeman shone a torch in a bushy area. Shariful had covered himself with dry leaves to stay concealed.

Police had tracked his movements from Bandra to Worli and Thane by trawling through 500 CCTV recordings. Sources said they got a tip-off on Friday from the owner of a manpower supply agency. Jitendra Pandey had provided a housekeeping job to the accused in a restaurant at Worli and later in Thane without verifying his antecedents. Pandey is now being questioned.

Shariful had used a fake name, Bijoy Das, to land the job in June 2024. In August, he was sacked from Worli's Slink and Bardot restaurant for theft. Police said Pandey redeployed him in Thane till Dec 15 when the establishment ended its contract with the staffing agency. Out of work, he began carrying out recces for burglary.

Police have found a birth certificate, nationality card, and family contact details stored on his phone. Shariful, police said, has confessed to the crime. He planned to burgle a flat in Bandra or Khar as he knew the rich and famous lived in this area. He had no clue that he had entered actor Saif Ali Khan’s house.

On Sunday afternoon, he was produced in the Bandra Magistrate’s court, where he was remanded to police custody for five days. Joint Commissioner of Police (Law & Order) Satyanarayan Chaudhari said police have invoked the Foreigners' Act, 1946, and Foreigners' Order, 1948 for illegal entry, alongside Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections for armed robbery against Shariful.

A police team scanning CCTV footage looked at visuals from nearly 500 cameras to track the accused. One of the clearest markers in identifying the suspect across locations was the colour and pattern of his shoes. A team led by DCP Dikshit Gedam went through footage from cameras starting from the actor's building going towards Linking Road and Bandra station, then Dadar and Worli before tracking him to Thane. Other members of the team included ACP Adhikrao Pol, Senior Inspector Sanjay Marathe, Inspectors Sachin Rane and Ajay Lingnurkar, Assistant Inspectors Vijay Achrekar, Bajrang Jagtap, Tushar Sawant and staff.

After escaping from the actor's flat, Shariful loitered around in the Bandra and Khar locality for almost five-and-half hours before catching a train from Bandra station to Dadar. By then, he had had a haircut, had a bath and changed his clothes.

"When we started scanning through CCTVs, we spotted the accused near Sadhu Vasvani petrol pump on Linking Road in Bandra West where he had changed his shirt. As he knew there were cameras ahead, he crossed the road. But he was captured on cameras at a Khar hotel. After walking for almost an hour-and-half, he slept at Khar station at 4 am before returning to Bandra in the morning and taking a train at 8 am to Dadar," said a police officer.

"We kept watching the leg and shoe for three hours and finally found the person in CCTV footage near National College. It resembled CCTV images captured at the actor's building. Then we spotted him in camera footage at Bandra railway station and then outside Dadar where he purchased some mobile phone accessories before he boarded a bus to Worli on Jan 16. He walked till he reached Worli Koliwada and stayed in a room where the pub hired by Pandey stayed. "On Jan 17, in the afternoon, he left Worli and reached Thane and hid in a labour camp before he was arrested," said the officer.

"He had illegally entered the country before reaching Mumbai. He was in Mumbai and Thane for the past six months and has used different names. We are collecting details about the documents he had created. He moved to Thane a few months ago. He returned to Mumbai 15 days ago before executive the offence. He was working with a housekeeping agency in Thane before he committed the offence and was caught within 72 hours," DCP Gedam said.

"He was in urgent need of money and planned to rob anyone and immediately escape to Bangladesh," said another officer.

During the search at Thane, the police team had almost given up hope after combing the area on the city's outskirts through the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. By 2 am, they had scanned 30 to 40 acres of land, comprising a nullah and thorny bushes. The seniors kept egging their juniors on. Finally, the breakthrough came when one of them shone a torch on some bushes and found the accused lying there.
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Saif Ali Khan attack case: Police combine use of tech and human intelligence to track down alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrant from Bandra to Thane via Andheri
Diwakar Sharma, Faizan Khan (MID-DAY; January 20, 2025)

A facial recognition security camera at Bandra railway station is responsible for the first breakthrough in the Saif Ali Khan attack case, as the alleged robber, Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad, was captured by the device on January 9. Subsequently, he was seen in the D N Nagar area of Andheri, where a biker was captured on another CCTV camera dropping him off. To track down the accused, the Mumbai police reviewed footage from the start of the new year to January 18.

During this detailed examination, the footage from DN Nagar proved pivotal, as it revealed the biker dropping off the alleged attacker.

The investigation revealed that the bike rider had picked up Shehzad from Andheri station before dropping him off at D N Nagar. Using the CCTV footage, the police identified the registration number of the bike. This led to a series of clues that ultimately helped the police trace the rider. Through him, they were able to identify and locate the accused.

Further CCTV analysis showed that Shehzad allegedly entered Saif’s residence at 1.33 am on January 16 and left the premises at 2.33 am. Later, at 7.05 am, he was spotted near Bandra station. He then travelled to Dadar station, where he was seen purchasing headphones from a mobile shop in the Kabutarkhana area around 9.05 am. From there, he went to Worli, where he was seen having breakfast at a food stall at 10.33 am, making the payment via Google Pay.

Police sources said they used the Google Pay transaction details to trace the attacker’s movements further. This eventually led them to a location near some bushes in the Hiranandani area of Thane, where the accused was apprehended around 2 am on January 19.

More details unearthed
Sources also revealed that the attacker had worked at a reputed club in Worli as part of the helping or cleaning staff until November last year. He was also reportedly living nearby. According to an officer, the contractor who hired the accused had not conducted proper background verification.

The Crime Branch sleuths, who had already obtained the mobile number of Shehzad, began tracking his tower location. This led them to Hiranandani Estate in Thane, where he had reportedly arrived just two days before he was arrested.

It is said that Shehzad, who kept on changing his name to avoid police detection, had started to work as a member of the cleaning staff in a luxury bar. However, the manager of the establishment told mid-day that Shehzad never worked for them.

A security supervisor at a housing society, requesting anonymity, told mid-day that nearly 10 police personnel had arrived at the security gate of the building in Hiranandani Estate on Saturday evening.

“I was on duty when police personnel arrived in plain clothes around 7.30 pm. One of them flashed his identity card and later started to ask about the accused. The policemen also showed us the CCTV grab of the attacker. When I asked the police why they had come to the housing society, one of them said that the tower location of the accused was nearby,” said the society supervisor.

There are two adjacent dining or entertainment establishments in the area. Asked if he ever saw the attacker working in either of the eateries, the security supervisor said, “I never saw him working in the restaurants at Hiranandani Estate but if he had joined a couple of days ago, it means someone was helping him to get a job in the city.”

Dramatic chase
The security supervisor added, “When one police officer was discussing the matter with me, others immediately rushed out of the housing society, stating that the tower location of the accused was changing.”

“The cops eventually made their way towards a labour camp where the attacker was arrested,” said the security supervisor.

The labour camp is located in a forested area and Shehzad ran through a narrow path surrounded by overgrown vegetation after he learnt that cops were searching for him. “They will investigate how the accused got alerted,” said the security supervisor.

The distance between the housing society where the policemen had arrived to enquiry about the accused and the labour camp is around 500 metres. One has to carefully negotiate the risky uneven path, along a large drain, that leads to the hideout of the accused.

The hundreds of labourers residing in shanties in the area were clueless as to what was happening. “Around 9 pm I saw nearly one dozen policemen standing near a cremation ground,” said Jaikali Devi, a resident.

“The cops started to ask each of us about some person. We were told that he had attacked a film star in Mumbai and had been hiding in this area. But we never saw him here,” she added.

Local sources told mid-day that the police had thoroughly searched each and every shanty in the labour camp. However, by the time they completed their search, the accused had already jumped over a small drain and fled deep into a mangrove patch.

“But the cops did not give up and continued to search for him. Suddenly, the cops noticed some suspicious activity in the mangroves where the accused was hiding. By then, many police officers had arrived in the area,” said a local, requesting anonymity.

Local sources claimed the cops took down details of all families residing in the camp. “The cops have taken the details of around 400 of us,” said a resident.

Accused’s profile
According to the police, Shehzad had studied up to Std 12th and had come to Mumbai from Bangladesh in search of better job opportunities. However, being unemployed and in urgent need of Rs 50,000 to return to Bangladesh, he decided to commit theft. He targeted Saif’s building as he found it easy to climb and noticed that security was not present at all the gates.

Officials further revealed that the accused was planning to escape to Kolkata via the Geetanjali Express and then flee to Bangladesh.

The Mumbai Police, in a release, stated that both Satyanarayan Chaudhari, commissioner of police (law and order), and Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police (crime), played crucial roles in tracing and apprehending the accused.