Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan was repeatedly stabbed with a knife by an intruder inside his 12th floor apartment in Mumbai, India, early on Thursday.
Mr Khan and his family – wife and fellow actor Kareena Kapoor Khan and their sons – live in an apartment spread over four floors in a twelve-storey building in Bandra West.
His elder son, Ibrahim Khan, rushed the actor to Lilavati Hospital hospital in an auto-rickshaw with the knife still lodged in his back.
The actor sustained six stab wounds, including two deep cuts on his back—one dangerously close to his spine—and a minor injury on his neck. Doctors at Lilavati Hospital say the actor is out of danger and his condition is now stable.
The attacker was spotted in CCTV footage from a stairwell in the actor’s home; wearing a t-shirt and jeans, with an orange scarf on his shoulder.
The nurse caring for Jehangir, Eliyama Phillips, who has been with the Khan household for four years, was the first to spot the intruder, after being woken up by noises in the apartment at 2 am on Thursday.
She told the police that she saw the bathroom door ajar and the light on and first assumed Kareena Kapoor Khan was checking in on her younger son. “I went back to sleep but, again, I realised something was wrong. So I woke up again and saw a man come out of the bathroom and go into the boy’s room.” At this point she confronted him – he responded by pointed his finger at himself and said, in Hindi, ‘don’t make a sound’ – and he demanded the Rs 1 crore.
And when she tried to fight him off, the 56-year-old suffered injuries to her wrists and hands. According to her statement, she then screamed, which alerted Mr Khan who also tried to fight off the intruder.
The actor was stabbed six times in thE fight and a two-and-a-half inch fragment of the knife broke off and got lodged in his spine.
The third person injured was a maid called Geeta.
In a statement, Khan’s public relations team confirmed the attempted burglary and requested patience from fans and the media as the police investigate. “Saif Ali Khan is currently in the hospital undergoing surgery,” the statement read.
Khan, 54, is now “out of danger” following the emergency surgery, the doctors said.
He was operated upon by a team of doctors led by neurosurgeon Dr Nitin Dange, cosmetic surgeon Dr Leena Jain and anaesthesiologist Dr Nisha Gandhi.
“He sustained six injuries, two are minor, two intermediate and two deep injuries, one of the injuries is on the back which is close to spine,” the hospital’s chief operating officer Dr Niraj Uttamani told PTI.
“Saif sustained a major injury to his thoracic spine due to a knife…Surgery was performed to remove the knife and also to repair the leaking spinal fluid. There were two other deep wounds in his left hand and right side of the neck which were repaired by the plastic surgery team. Khan is completely stable now. He is in recovery mode and is completely out of danger,” Dr Dange said.
According to Dr Uttamani, the actor was “on the path to recovery”.”He has been shifted to the ICU. Maybe in a day or two he will be shifted to the (non-ICU) ward,” he added.
Ten police teams, alongside five specialised crime branch units, are scouring hotspots like Bandra and local railway stations in pursuit of a suspect. He was last spotted in Prabhadevi.
Police have registered a case of ‘armed robbery with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt’.
(Agencies; Picture Courtesy: Mumbai Police, PTI)
