Also, it turned out, from small talk burning holes in Social Media, that the black-buck wasn't killed by the usual suspect. Saif stood in the Social Media dock. Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi had got his bearings wrong. So said 'X'. Salman Khan was no match for the England-educated ‘Nawab of Bollywood'.

Now, the Mumbai Police has Saif’s attacker in custody, caught hiding in a thicket next to a Thane road, behind a workers settlement. The attacker was staying in the workers' colony before he took off to Mumbai to break into Mumbai's posh apartments.

The fellow had also done a recce of superstar Shahrikh Khan's 'Mannat'. For a couple hours after the video showing the 'Mannat recce' was out, everybody was speculating whether it was a free-for-all against the Bollywood Khans. Shahrukh Khan visited Saif Ali Khan's Lilavati bedside.

And talk turned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one-slogan-fits-all, 'Ek hai toh Saif Hai'! It applies to Bollywood's 'Khans' as much as it applies to 'Bangladesh's Hindu minority'. The intruder has now been identified as 'Shariful Islam Shehzad' of Bangladeshi extraction.

An infiltrator who was part-time housekeeper and part-time burglar, Shariful Islam Shehzad was on the run after beating Saif Ali Khan in a one-on-one. He was on the run when a bellyache for a “paratha” at a roadside eatery did him in. Shariful Islam paid the price for using the UPI, which triggered the electronic trace that led the police to 'Islam' hiding in a thicket.

Police these days don’t need to be brave aided as they are by electronic takeaways of modern-day crime-fighting. The Mumbai Police just followed the electronic signals. And the Mumbai Police couldn’t even place Shariful Islam Shehzad's as a Bangladeshi 'infiltrator'.

It took time for the police to identify the Bangladeshi ‘ghuspetiya’, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s description for all and every Muslim found wandering India’s thoroughfares. All that the Mumbai Police had to do was talk to residents of the northeast states and West Bengal, they would have identified Shariful by the 'Islam' middle name, which is always and always that of a 'Bangladeshi'.

The middle name ‘Islam’ is teeming in West Bengal, in Tripura and in Assam. Look up the records of the Delhi Police and 'Islam' would be found among alleged Bangladeshis caught by the Delhi Police in the recent search and cordon operation against Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators on the orders of the Delhi Lt. Guv.

Saif Ali Khan wasn’t a victim of a planned attack though there have been plenty of cock and bull conspiracy stories doing the rounds of Social Media. Where was Kareena Kapoor Khan? Why was Shariful Islam Shehzad doing a recce of Shahrukh Khan's 'Mannat'? How did 'Islam' get into Saif's multi-storied apartment without being spotted on CCTV all over Bandra? Did a househelp open the door for 'Islam'?

And what was Jeh's Malayali nanny Eliyamma Phillip doing wide awake at 2 am in the wee hours? Eliyamma says she confronted the ‘burglar’ coming out of a bathroom and the men asked for Rs 1 crore in cash! Eliyamma sustained injuries to her hand before Saif Ali Khan jumped into the fray and the knife turned on him?

Saif was stabbed six times. Saif's hands, back and spine took the brunt of the attack, the last was rewarded with a shard of the knife. The muscled part of Saif’s back saved his life. A millimetre and Sharmila Tagore 'Tiger' Pataudi would have been looking for a replacement 'Nawab!'

Lucky Saif! Saif Ali Khan isn't 'Nawab' for some technical familial glitch and was among the ‘Kapoors’ who had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg. Some of Modi’s luck seems to have been rubbed on Saif Ali Khan. ‘Saif the Sher’ walked in with a "six/seven-year-old boy,” the surgeons said.

The blood-soaked Saif was accompanied by his sons Ibrahim Ali Khan and Taimur Ali Khan. The family’s women folk were not needed. That didn't stop news from swirling that Kareena Kapoor Khan was partying in 'Someplace Else' when hubby Saif was fighting to save his sons. The intruder, whose ‘mug’ was caught on CCTV, used the high-rise's stairwell to escape the Bandra high-rise.

What kept Saif Ali Khan’s courage up a peg or two is for the Lilavati doctors to tell, who couldn't get over the thrill that a Bollywood celebrity had chosen 'Lilavati' over other hospitals. Don’t be surprised if Lilavati flaunts framed photos of Saif Ali Khan, Ibrahim Ali Khan and Taimur Ali Khan in its lobby for the next 100 years. ‘Jeh’ couldn’t accompany ‘Saif, not with Eliyamma Phillip playing ‘mother hen’, and Kareena Kapoor Khan MIA, completely and totally off-screen.

Common people, the ‘aam aadmi’, aren’t ready to believe the ‘Police Story’. They see conspiracy and they say Saif is playing safe because the matter goes deeper than the piece of knife that went in and was found stuck in Saif's spine.

That there is more to the ‘story’ than that is being put out for public consumption is untenable for the time being. If only Shariful Islam Shehzad had more brains than most 'burglars' have. On the run after escaping the security of the high-rise, 'Islam' shouldn't have gone to Thane, like a homing pigeon.

Instead, the fellow should have taken whatever means available to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh where he could have lost himself in the teeming millions visiting the 'Mahakumbh' and found 'Moksh' in the bargain, perhaps even accompanied the Naga sadhus to their mountain hideouts! (IPA Service)