Mumbai Police told a city court on Friday that it is probing the possibility of an accomplice having facilitated Shariful Islam, who has been arrested for allegedly stabbing Saif Ali Khan during a failed robbery attempt at the actor's residence on January 16. “During investigation, it has been strongly suspected that the arrested accused may have additional accomplices, and an inquiry regarding this is underway with the arrested accused,” police said in its remand application filed in the Bandra court. Shariful, a Bangladeshi national, was presented again before the court, which extended his police custody until January 29. He was arrested from Thane early Sunday. Seeking custody of Shariful for seven more days, public prosecutor Kishor Patil told the court that there has been considerable progress in the case and further custodial interrogation of the accused was necessary to recover additional evidence. The investigators said the clothes worn by the complainant (Eliyamma Philip), the injured (Khan and Geeta) and other witnesses at the time of the incident have been sent to the FSL along with the blood samples of the accused for forensic analysis. Police also informed the court that they have seized the weapon used to attack the actor, clothes that Shariful wore during and after the attack, his mobile phone, SIM card, scarf and a bag. “We need to recover the shoes he wore during the incident. We also need to understand the source from whom he obtained the weapon,” public prosecutor Patil told the court. The police said Shariful was not cooperating with the investigation and they were trying to identify the motive behind the crime. The police have recovered CCTV footage of Shariful from Khan's residential premises and other locations in the city. They want to conduct a facial recognition test, Prasad Joshi, another public prosecutor, told the court. The police said they wanted to ascertain how Shariful managed to acquire the mobile phone and SIM card recovered from him. “We have recovered a fake Aadhaar card with his picture, but it was made in the name of Vijay Das. We want to determine how he obtained it,” said an officer. “The arrested accused is not providing information about who helped him enter India from Bangladesh and reside illegally in India and we want to probe into it,” the police stated. Shariful was also taken to the spot, which helped police determine the sequence of events, police submitted before the court. Defence lawyer Sandeep Sherkhane, arguing that custodial interrogation was not necessary, and raised questions on the conduct of those present at Khan's residence. “It is suspicious that family members and others present inside the house did not contact the police or security personnel in the building. Instead, they went directly to the hospital,” he said. Sherkhane claimed that Shariful was being falsely implicated in the case because he is a Bangladeshi national. After hearing submissions from both sides, the court observed that the offence was serious. It said that further collection of evidence, interrogation and investigation are necessary, and therefore, continued police custody is required.
