Man Wrongly Linked to Saif Ali Khan Attack Says Life in Disarray After Detention

�Raipur: The man who was detained by the railway protection force (RPF) at Durg Junction in Chhattisgarh on January 18 on suspicion of being involved in the recent attack on Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan in the latter’s Bandra house said that his life has turned topsy turvy after being made a suspect in the high-profile case.

Akash Kailash Kanojia (31), a resident of Colaba in Mumbai, said that he has suffered a series of setbacks in his personal and professional lives after his photographs were widely circulated in the Television news channels and other media outlets as being a suspect in the attack on Mr Khan.

“I was terminated from my job and my prospective bride’s family cancelled the marriage after I was declared a suspect in the attack on the actor”, he told the media.

“My life is now in complete disarray”, he said.

Kanojia was picked up from the general coach of the Jnaneswari Express at Durg Junction by the RPF while travelling from Mumbai to Bilaspur on January 18 following an alert by the investigators in the case.

He was later taken to Raipur where a police team from Mumbai interrogated him regarding the incident.

The suspect in the case was released from police detention on January 19 after the alleged attacker Shariful Islam, a Bangladeshi national, was arrested at Thane in Maharashtra.

“I was to travel to Nehla (around 50 km from Bilaspur) to visit my ailing grandmother and meet my prospective bride and her family”, he said.

He said that his mother was shocked to learn that he was a suspect in the case and asked him to immediately return home when he contacted her after being released.

His grandmother later called him to inform that his prospective in-laws had refused to go ahead with the marriage proposal, according to him.

Another shock awaited him as his employer asked him not to report to duty since he did not want to deal with a person who landed in legal trouble, he said.

“There was no need to circulate my photograph in the media as being a suspect in the case despite my pleadings of being innocent”, he said.

He was working as a driver with a tour operator in Mumbai.

Kanojia, accused in a drug-related case and a theft case, is considering moving the court seeking to take down his photograph on the internet as being the suspect in the actor’s attack case.