Bring a stretcher, I am Saif Ali Khan: Auto driver recalls actor’s words

Auto rickshaw driver Bhajan Singh Rana said he was not aware that the passenger with blood-soaked ‘kurta’ he ferried to Lilavati Hospital in the wee hours of Thursday was Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan.

“It was only when we reached the hospital gate that he called the guard to fetch a stretcher, saying he was Saif Ali Khan,” the auto driver told reporters in Mumbai on Friday.

He said when he was passing by the Satguru Darshan building where the actor stayed, a woman and a few others asked him to stop the rickshaw.

“Then the person whose white kurta was soaked in blood got in the auto. I noticed he had neck and back injuries, but did not notice the hand injury,” he said.

“He (Saif) walked into the auto. There was a seven-eight year old boy who also boarded the rickshaw,” he said, when asked if the actor’s son Taimur accompanied him to the hospital.

The earlier plan was to go to the Holy Family hospital in Bandra but then Saif asked to be taken to Lilavati Hospital, also in Bandra, the driver said.

“When we reached the hospital, he called out to the guard at the gate and told him: Please bring a stretcher. I am Saif Ali Khan,” he said, adding the auto reached the hospital around 3 am.

The driver said he did not take fare amount from the actor after he dropped him at the hospital within seven to eight minutes.

The actor was speaking with the boy in the auto, Rana said, adding there was also another young man in the auto, in an apparent reference to Ibrahim Ali Khan, the 23-year-old son of Saif and his first wife, Amrita Singh.