Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan met auto-rickshaw driver Bhajan Singh Rana, who rushed him to hospital after he was injured in the knife attack at his home in Mumbai in the wee hours last week, and thanked him for the timely help.
The driver told PTI that Saif also gave him some money and assured all help to him whenever needed.
Asked how much money Saif gave him, Rana declined to disclose the exact amount, maintaining the actor requested him not to share this information.
However, the driver revealed that a social worker, Faizan Ansari, separately gave him Rs 11,000.
Rana said on reaching the Lilavati Hospital in Bandra just before Saif was discharged on Tuesday evening, he met the filmstar and his family members, and touched the feet of his mother, veteran actress Sharmila Tagore, out of reverence.
The auto driver said they treated him with respect and also clicked pictures with him. He said Khan promised to stay in touch with him.
Khan (54) was stabbed multiple times by a Bangladeshi national inside his 12th-floor apartment in the posh Bandra area in the wee hours of January 16 during an attempted robbery. He underwent two surgeries at the private hospital, a few kilometres away from the actor's building.
"I met him (Saif) yesterday (Tuesday) at the hospital. He called to thank me for taking him to the hospital. He praised me. I got the blessings from him and his family," the auto-rickshaw driver said.
"He (Khan) introduced me to his mother (Sharmila Tagore), and I touched her feet. He gave me (money) whatever he felt was right, and said whenever I need help he will be there," Rana said.
The intruder, Shareeful Islam Shehzad Mohammad Rohilla Amin Fakir (30), who illegally entered India last year and changed his name to Vijay Das, was arrested on Sunday from adjoining Thane city.
A preliminary investigation indicates that the accused, who is held in police custody, had barged into the house of the actor with an intention to steal, the police said.
On Wednesday, police officials announced that all the departments under the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Kalina will scrutinise key evidence seized during the probe into the stabbing case.
The FSL is looking into several materials including mobile phones, clothes of the accused and CCTV footage that was confiscated after the arrest of Fakir," a police official said.
Evidence analysis will involve FSL departments such as Tape Authentication and Speaker Identification (TASI), Biology, DNA, Footprints, Physics, Cyber, and others, a police official added.
He claimed that police could not notice the blood stains on the clothes of the accused who were seized from his bag at the time when he was arrested from Thane.
According to the official, investigators are finding it hard to question Fakir as he speaks Hindi with a thick Bangladeshi accent. He has been asked to speak slowly so that police could decipher his statements.
Police on Tuesday recreated the sequence of events of the crime that occurred at Khan's building, 'Satguru Sharan'. The accused was taken to a nearby building for some time during the recreation of the crime scene, said the official.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam reacted to the "quick recovery" of the Bollywood actor.
"The doctors in Lilavati Hospital said that the knife entered 2.5 inches of Saif Ali Khan's body and his six-hour long operation went on to six hours in total. They ought to tell the nation if there is a likelihood of a recovery so soon where a person on whom a long six-hour lengthy operation was held," Nirupam asked.
"The knife was wedged deep, but Saif walked out alive from the hospital. This is nothing short of a miracle by the doctors," Raut said.
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