Attack on Saif Ali Khan: Accused sent to 14-day judicial custody
The police requested the court to extend the 30-year-old’s police custody remand for two more days as they wanted to interrogate him further. However, the court rejected the request as the investigating officer of the case said the probe was “almost complete”
MUMBAI: A metropolitan magistrate court in Bandra on Wednesday remanded Shariful Islam Shehzad Fakir, the Bangladeshi national arrested for allegedly attacking actor Saif Ali Khan at his residence on January 16 following a failed robbery attempt, to judicial custody for 14 days.
The police requested the court to extend the 30-year-old’s police custody remand for two more days as they wanted to interrogate him further. However, the court rejected the request as the investigating officer of the case said the probe was “almost complete”.
The investigating officer, police inspector Ajay Lingnurkar, told the court that the police had recovered the weapon—a knife—used to commit the crime from the accused, along with other articles such as a gamcha (cloth), a backpack, and clothes he was allegedly wearing on the day of the assault.
The police also said they had conducted a panchnama of the shop Shariful had purchased the knife from in Bandra and recorded statements of witnesses in Kolkata, where he used to live after illegally entering India and where he acquired Indian identity documents. The police still have to trace the agent who helped him procure Indian identity documents, the court was told.
The investigating officer said he was waiting for the Bandra police team that went to Kolkata to return to Mumbai and confront the accused with the evidence collected, which is why they wanted two more days of custody.
The police said they had acquired footage from over 300 CCTV cameras and established a clear image of the accused from at least 25 grabs. The CCTV footage and photographs of the accused taken after his arrest have been sent to a forensic science laboratory for facial recognition.
The investigating officer also told the court that the police had established during the probe that Shariful had done a recce of the area around Satguru Sharan, the building in Bandra West in which Khan and his family reside, two days before the alleged assault, and they suspected he had an accomplice.
Even as the defence lawyer, Sandip Sherkhane, began his argument against extending Shariful’s police custody remand, the metropolitan magistrate intervened and dictated the order, remanding the accused to judicial custody. The court said that since the investigation was almost over, there was no need for further police custody.
The court, however, told the investigating officer and Sanjay Marathe, senior police inspector of Bandra police station, that if they find new evidence, they can request for additional police custody of the accused.
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