Sources in the Mumbai Police have claimed here on Monday that the alleged attacker of actor Saif Ali Khan confessed to have attacked the actor even as several netizens, through their X accounts, questioned the police’s statement that the attacker is a Bangladeshi.

The sources have been quoted as claiming that the accused has confessed that he attacked actor Saif Ali Khan.

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Mumbai Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone 9, Dixit Gedam has stated that the name of Khan’s attacker is Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad who, he said, is “a Bangladeshi national”, who allegedly crossed over
to India illegally. “We arrested the accused from Thane last night. He has been identified as Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad of Bangladeshi origin. We have applied sections of the Passports Act against him as
he could not produce any proof to show he was Indian and we found some proof to show that he is Bangladeshi,” Gedam said.

The police claimed that the accused hails from the Jhalokathi district in Bangladesh’s Barisal division and that he used to be a “national-level wrestler”.

According to the Mumbai Police, the accused allegedly changed his name to Vijay Das after entering India and came to Mumbai about six months ago after which he began working in a Thane-based hotel, but left that
job about a fortnight ago.

However, several netizens disputed the claims of the Mumbai Police and compared the visuals of Shehzad after his arrest with visuals of the attacker, as recorded in the CCTV camera of the actor’s residence. They pointed out that the two visuals showed different persons. Posting both photos adjacent to each other on X, netizens alleged that the Mumbai police arrested not the attacker but someone else in the Saif Ali Khan stabbing case.

Earlier, the public prosecutor said Shariful had prior knowledge of the Bandra locality, which is home to several celebrities, and acted according to a premeditated plan. He managed to breach the actor’s residence as part of a calculated attempt, despite tight security in the area, the prosecution argued.

Yet, Shariful’s lawyer Dinesh Prajapati dismissed the prosecution’s allegations as baseless. Prajapati argued that the case had gained prominence solely because a celebrity was involved and that his client Mohammed Shariful Islam was being falsely implicated. He argued that no evidence has been presented to prove that Mohammed Shariful Islam’s nationality is Bangladeshi. “Nothing has been recovered from him, and
no documents have been provided to establish his identity as a Bangladeshi national,” he added.

The second defence advocate, Sandeep Shekhane, also stated that the Mumbai Police have no evidence to prove that the accused, Mohammad Shariful Islam, is a Bangladeshi national. “Police custody for five days has been granted, and the court has directed them to submit a report within this time frame. The police have no proof that he is a Bangladeshi. The claim that he came here six months ago is false. This is a clear violation of Section 43A because no proper investigation has been conducted,” Shekhane said.

He went on to say that an “international conspiracy” angle was suggested by the police only because the accused stayed in Bangladesh earlier. “He does not have any international cases. They changed the angle of the case just because he (the accused) is Bangladeshi… Earlier, he was in Bangladesh, but he has been living here for many years now. Police said he has been living in Mumbai for 6 months, which is not true,” he said.