Saif Ali Khan was stabbed six times, including in his neck, at his apartment in the posh Bandra West neighbourhood on Thursday.
AMN / WEB DESK
Doctors who treated Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan say actor is out of the ICU (intensive care unit) and is recovering well. These doctors treated him after he was stabbed by an intruder at his Mumbai residence have said.
Mr Khan was stabbed six times, including in his neck, at his apartment in the posh Bandra West neighbourhood around 2:30 am on Thursday. A 2.5-inch piece of the blade was removed from his spine after a five-hour-long surgery.
“Saif Ali Khan is doing excellent. We made him walk and he can walk well. There is no problem and not much pain,” Dr Nitin Narayan Dange of the city’s Lilawati Hospital said in a media briefing today.
“We have shifted him from the ICU to a special room. The visitors’ movement has been restricted for almost a week due to the injury in his spine. It has a potential chance for spreading infection,” he said.
He also said there is “no risk” of paralysis.
Niraj Uttamani, the Chief Operating Officer of Lilavati Hospital, said Mr Khan walked into the hospital “like a lion” and was accompanied by his son, Taimur Ali Khan. He didn’t even use a stretcher, he said.
“He (Mr Khan) was soaked in blood when he arrived in the hospital. But he walked in like a lion. He is a ‘real hero’,” Mr Uttamani said.
“He is very fortunate. If a knife was 2 mm deeper, he would have sustained a serious injury,” he added.
Saif Ali Khan was attacked when he was with his family members – his wife and fellow actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, and their two sons, four-year-old Jeh and eight-year-old Taimur – at his residence in the 12-floor apartment.
Eliyama Philip – a nurse caring for Mr Khan’s four-year-old son Jehangir (also known as Jeh) – and another staffer were also injured in the attack.
In a statement to the police, Ms Philip, who claimed she has been with the Khan household for four years, said she was the first to spot the intruder – who was between 35-40 years old – at Mr Khan’s apartment on the 11th floor.
She also said the knife-wielding attacker – who is on the run and was seen near the Bandra railway station hours after the incident – also demanded a ransom of Rs 1 crore.
She said she had been woken by noises in the house around 2 am – three hours after Jehangir had been put to bed. She told the police the attacker first entered Jeh’s room.
Ms Philip said she saw the bathroom door ajar and the light on and first assumed that Ms Kapoor Khan was checking in on her younger son.
“… then 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.”
“I quickly got up and went to Jeh’s room. The attacker then put his finger near his mouth and said “Don’t make any noise, nobody will go out” in Hindi,” Ms Philip said.
When I rushed to pick up Jeh, the man – who was armed with a wooden stick and a long Hexa blade – ran towards me and tried attacking me, she said.
“I tried to block the attack by putting my hand forward, but the blade hit me near the wrists of both my hands and on the middle finger of my left hand,” she said.
“At that time, I asked him, “What do you want?”. Then he said, “I want money.” I asked, “How much do you want?” Then he said in English, “One crore”,” 56-year-old Philip recalled in her police statement.
Hearing Eliyama Philip’s scream, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan rushed out of their room. When Mr Khan asked the intruder what he wanted, he attacked him with a wooden object and the hexa blade, Ms Philip said in her police statement.
“Saif Sir somehow managed to get away from him and we all ran out of the room and pulled the door of the room,” she said, adding that everyone then went to the upper floor of their home.