May 11, 2025 06:26 AM IST: Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad, a Bangladeshi national, who is accused of breaking into actor Saif Ali Khan’s home and stabbing him, is asking to get out of jail pronto. He claims the cops nabbed him without giving him the lowdown in writing about why they were arresting him, which is apparently a big no-no. According to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) section 47, the police have to spill the beans on why they’re slapping the cuffs on someone before doing so.
The plea was submitted by Shehzad, 30, through his lawyer Ajay Gawli to the Bandra metropolitan magistrate court on Friday. The plea is based on various Supreme Court and high court rulings that say it’s a must to spill the tea on the reasons for the arrest before hauling someone in. In one of these wise rulings, the Supreme Court emphasized that the grounds for arrest should be given in writing to avoid any confusion and to give the accused a fair chance to defend themselves during the remand hearing. The court also made it clear that even if a charge sheet is filed later on, it won’t fix the initial mistake of not informing the accused about the reasons for their arrest.
“It was totally necessary for the authorities to tell the accused why they were being arrested before bringing them to court for remand,” the plea stated. “The poor guy has been stuck in jail even though there’s no real evidence to keep him there,” the plea added. Shehzad is down to cooperate with the investigation and follow the court’s rules, according to his lawyer. The court has asked the police to respond to Shehzad’s plea, and the next hearing is set for May 13. Shehzad got nabbed on January 19 in a labor camp in Thane, a few days after the alleged incident.
According to the police, Shehzad broke into Khan’s swanky 12th-floor crib in a building in Bandra West in the wee hours of January 16 with the intention of robbing the place. Things took a dark turn when he allegedly stabbed Khan multiple times before making a run for it. Khan ended up with six stab wounds, one of them being pretty serious near his spinal cord. He even had a knife shard stuck in there! The actor got discharged from the hospital five days later.
In March, Shehzad tried to get bail by claiming he was set up and the case against him was bogus. The court shut that down real quick, though, saying there was solid forensic evidence against him, including CCTV footage and facial recognition analysis. In April, the Bandra police dropped a charge sheet that had DNA analysis and fingerprints pointing fingers at Shehzad. They also did a deep dive into CCTV footage from different spots in Mumbai and used facial recognition tech to ID Shehzad.
The whole situation is a hot mess, with Shehzad fighting to prove his innocence while the police are convinced they got their guy. It’s a classic case of he said, she said, with no end in sight. But hey, that’s the justice system for you—never a dull moment.
