Father of accused alleges son being framed in Saif stabbing case

The father of the Bangladeshi man accused of stabbing actor Saif Ali Khan will soon approach that country's foreign ministry and the Indian High Commission for the release of his son, who he said was being framed for reasons unknown to him.

In a 12-minute interview, Mohammad Ruhul, the father of Shariful Islam, told PTI over the phone from Bangaldesh that his son did not have proper documentation for his stay in India and he lived in constant fear of being arrested.

He alleged that the man seen in the CCTV camera footage was not Shariful and added that his son was being framed.

"I will get in touch with the Bangaldeshi foreign ministry and also seek help from the Indian High Commission in Dhaka for the release of my son," Ruhul told PTI.

He claimed that he learned about his son's arrest through Facebook and news channels and added he had not been contacted by police in this connection.

"The police have not said anything to us," Ruhul told PTI.

He revealed that Shariful entered India between the last week of March and the first week of April last year.

A Mumbai court on Friday extended till January 29 the police custody of Shariful, arrested for allegedly stabbing Khan at his home during a robbery attempt last week. The police informed the court that it had to conduct facial recognition of the man to ascertain if he was the person seen in the CCTV footage from the actor's building in Bandra.

Shariful, arrested from Thane city, changed his name to Vijay Das after illegally entering India last year, the police earlier said.

The 54-year-old actor allegedly was stabbed repeatedly by the knife-wielding intruder inside his 12th floor apartment in upscale Bandra in the early hours of January 16.

Ruhul claimed that his son was not involved in the stabbing incident, saying it would not have been possible for Shariful to enter the home of a star of Khan's stature and commit such a crime.

"In the video footage we saw, the man (in the footage) has hair till the eyebrows. My son doesn't wear his hair like that. He is 30 years old and has never kept his hair this long, not even as a teenager," Ruhul said.

India is a huge country, it is quite possible that one person would bear some resemblance to another person, he said. "But the CCTV camera photos that I saw of the (accused) person do not match my son."  He also alleged that his son was being framed by a "third party". "There might be a conspiracy."  Ruhul, a local leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), worked at the People's Jute Mill in Khulna district before retiring to his native village in Jhalokathi district.

He said Shariful used to work at a hotel in Mumbai and sent a portion of the salary he received on the "10th, 11th, 12th" of every month.

Ruhul said Hasina's re-election in January 2024 forced Shariful to leave Bangladesh.

After Hasina became prime minister again, Shariful realised that he could not survive in Bangladesh. He saw other people leave Bangladesh for other countries and earn a living there. With this in mind, he went to India, Ruhul said.

"He didn't have any documentation. One who has documents can go and work anywhere. Having valid documents has a lot of advantages," he said.

Shariful lived in constant fear because he did not have any documents, his father said. "There is no question of him roaming around."  Ruhul is the area vice president of a BNP union. His eldest son is the organisation secretary of the BNP while Shariful was a party member.