During an interview with The Times of India, Saif shared that he and Kareena Kapoor were asleep when, around 2 a.m., their house help barged in to inform them that an intruder had entered their son Jeh’s room and was demanding money. He described the intruder, who was masked and wielding two knives.

“He had a knife in each hand and was wearing a mask. It was surreal, like something out of a movie. Instinct took over, and I grabbed him. We started wrestling, and he was hitting me hard in the back. I initially thought he was holding two sticks over Jeh’s bed, but it turned out to be a hexa blade,” Saif recounted.

He continued, “I went upstairs to find something to defend myself, while Kareena had already taken Jeh to Taimur’s room. In the midst of the chaos, I remember her yelling, ‘Get the kid out!’ Despite my struggle with the intruder, I couldn’t keep up once I realized he had two knives.”

Saif managed to confine the intruder to Jeh’s room, but the assailant ultimately escaped through the drainpipe he used to enter. It was only afterward that Saif began to feel the pain from his wounds. “I started to realize I was hurt. ‘I think something’s wrong with my back,’ I told Kareena. She suggested I go to the hospital while she hurried to call her sister, but no one was available. We exchanged glances, and I assured her, ‘I’m fine. I’m not going to die.’ Taimur also asked me, ‘Are you going to die?’ and I said, ‘No.’”

Once downstairs, Kareena desperately sought a rickshaw or cab, and soon, Taimur and the househelp, Hari, rushed Saif to the hospital. Reflecting on Taimur’s reaction, Saif remarked that his son remained calm throughout the ordeal. “He was completely composed and insisted, ‘I’m coming with you.’ I found comfort in just looking at him during that time; I didn’t want to be alone.”

Looking back on the incident, Saif feels fortunate, as the attack could have left him paralyzed. Doctors informed him that a knife had pierced three to four inches into his shoulder, nearly reaching his spinal cord. He described feeling numbness in his leg due to spinal fluid leakage. “It was that close—just one more millimeter and we could have been discussing paralysis,” he said. “I can’t fathom how the attacker missed my carotid artery and jugular vein. It’s astonishing that he could inflict such a wound without killing me.”