Tracking SIM used by Saif attack accused, Mumbai Police questions woman in Bengal village near Bangladesh border

Confirming the matter, Nadia SP K Amarnath told The Indian Express: “A Mumbai Police team has come and questioned the woman in connection with the case.”

The woman has not been arrested as of Monday evening.

Police said she had moved out from her first husband’s home in Bara Andulia after his death four years ago and remarried, after which she has lived in Chapra, where she was questioned by Mumbai Police. She had taken the SIM card and phone along when she moved villages, she told police.

However, three years ago, she lost her phone while travelling to Kolkata and lost the SIM along with it, she reportedly told police.

Speaking to The Indian Express over the phone on Monday, the woman’s father said, “She lives in Chapra, but recently she had been staying in the Jhitkhapota area with her aunt. In the morning, a team from the Mumbai Police arrived, escorted by local police. They interrogated her for a few hours and left. In the evening, the team came and interrogated her again.”

The woman’s mother said her daughter had been repeatedly questioned about how she lost her SIM and phone, where she lost it, and details about that day. “They also asked her if she is connected to the accused and whether she has a Bangladesh connection… In the morning a police team came to our village and talked to everyone here,” the mother said.

When The Indian Express had reached out to the woman last week, she said over the phone, “I had my husband’s cell phone for about four years, but then I lost the cell phone.”

The accused in the Saif Ali Khan attack case has been identified as Md Shariful Islam, a Bangladesh national.

On January 16, in the early hours, he allegedly broke into the actor’s home in Mumbai and stabbed him multiple times, leaving him seriously injured.

Investigators said the accused used a SIM card that was registered under the name of a resident of Bara Andulia village in Bengal.

Police are now trying to determine how a SIM card from this village near the Bangladesh border was used by the accused in Mumbai.

Bara Andulia, located about two km from the Bangladesh border, is a farming village that mainly grows jute. Many of the village’s youths have migrated to Mumbai to work in hotels and bars.