Indian Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan was stabbed in a scuffle with an intruder at his home early Thursday and underwent surgery at a hospital, media reports said.
The 54-year-old actor was taken to the hospital from his home in Mumbai, the country’s financial and entertainment capital, where he lives with his movie star wife, Kareena Kapoor, and two sons.
Two of the six wounds were deep, with one near his spine, the Press Trust of India news agency cited a doctor at Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital as saying.
Indian media quoted police as saying the intruder barged into the house at about 2:30 a.m. local time and fled after stabbing Khan. A female employee at Khan’s home was also injured during the attack and was being treated, they said.
Police are investigating and have launched a search for the attacker.
Kapoor said in a statement that their family was fine and requested “the media and fans to be patient and not speculate any further as the police is already doing their due investigations.”
Bollywood star
Among the country’s most bankable stars, Khan is the son of India’s former cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and actress Sharmila Tagore. His daughter from a previous marriage, Sara, is also a Bollywood actor. He and Kapoor have two young sons and are one of Bollywood’s most well-known couples.
Khan, who is also a movie producer, has been featured in about 70 films and television series. He has acted in several notable films and series, including Sacred Games — Netflix’s first Indian production — which was released in 2018.
He won multiple awards for his roles in Hindi cinema, including seven Filmfare Awards. In 2010, he received the Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.
Following the attack, film stars and opposition leaders called for police to beef up security measures in the city.
“If such high-profile people with … security can be attacked in their homes, what could happen to common citizens?” Clyde Crasto, spokesperson of the Nationalist Congress Party, asked on X.
Actor and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt also called for a greater police presence in the suburb in which the attack took place — home to many in the film industry.
“The city, and especially the queen of the suburbs, have never felt so unsafe before,” she said on X, using a popular description for the trendy Bandra area.
Mohit Rajhans, a Toronto-based writer and broadcaster who has met Khan in the past, told CBC News the attack brings up a wider conversation around social media scrutiny that surrounds Bollywood stars.
Such performers, he said, are at the centre of “paparazzi culture,” in which support often translates into fans congregating around stars’ homes and — in some cases — physically fighting against security detail to get closer to them and their families.
“If you are familiar with the actual culture of Bollywood stardom, you’ll start to realize that there has been a massive amount of … privacy that these stars have had to sacrifice as a result of multimedia culture,” he said, noting that things as personal as their flight details and daily movements are tracked and logged.
“Many of these stars, whether they’re leaving restaurants or whether they’re simply on vacation, are starting to see their lives being translated online 24/7. And that could be a security concern,” Rajhans said.
