By Megan Gorrey
The elder terrorist shot dead by police at Bondi Beach after he and his son went on a shooting rampage that killed 15 people on Sunday was an Indian citizen from the southern city of Hyderabad.
Sajid Akram, 50, visited India six times after he migrated to Australia on a student visa in 1998. Indian police said they had no “adverse record” of him before he left, and his family didn’t know he had a “radical mindset”.
Sajid Akram, 50, was shot by police and died at the scene of Sunday’s massacre.Credit:
Akram and his son Naveed Akram, 24, injured dozens of people when they used long-arm firearms to open fire on a crowd of families at a Hanukkah event on the beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Sunday.
Sajid Akram, 50, was gunned down by police and died at the scene. Naveed Akram was also shot but survived. He woke from a coma in hospital on Tuesday night. Police have said they intend to lay charges.
Indian police from the southern Indian state of Telangana said in a statement that Sajid Akram had obtained a commerce degree in the capital of Hyderabad, a sprawling tech hub.
He then moved to Australia in November 1998 to find work and married a woman described as of European origin, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He retained his Indian passport. Naveed Akram was born in 2002 and is an Australian citizen.
Sajid Akram had lived in the Tolichowki area of Telangana, according to a report in The Hindu. Government officials who ran a background check on Akram found he had last travelled to India for a two-week visit in 2022.
The masthead also reported that another official said Akram’s immediate family still lived in Hyderabad, and his elder brother was a doctor. His late father worked in the United Arab Emirates.
Indian police said in their statement Akram went back to India six times for family-related reasons, such as property matters and to visit his parents, but did not return when his father died in 2017.
Police said they had no “adverse record” of him before he migrated to Australia, and his relatives said he had limited contact with his family in Hyderabad in the past 27 years.
“The family members have expressed no knowledge of his radical mindset or activities, nor of the circumstances that led to his radicalisation.
“The factors that led to the radicalisation of Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed, appear to have no connection with India or any local influence in Telangana,” the police statement said.
Responding to the pair’s alleged connections to the Islamic State terrorist group, the Indian police statement said that “further investigation in this regard is being carried out by Australian authorities”.
NSW Police confirmed on Tuesday they had found two homemade Islamic State flags – along with improvised explosive devices – in the pair’s car at the scene of the massacre. Police sources said the Akrams had prepared a manifesto before the massacre.
Authorities are also investigating why in November the father and son travelled to the Philippines, one of the few nations with an enduring Islamic State terrorist group presence.
They are also probing how Sajid Akram – who had six firearms registered to him – had legally secured high-powered weapons despite his son’s long-known links to extremist circles.
Naveed Akram was a volunteer member of a street preaching group in Sydney’s west, which has links to multiple Islamic State devotees, including self-declared martyrs and would-be soldiers, before he and his father carried out the country’s worst terror attack.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday confirmed domestic spy agency ASIO had taken an interest in Naveed Akram in 2019.
“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others, and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” Albanese said.
“The assessment was made because of the son’s associations that he had at that time, and the investigation went for a period of six months.”
With Reuters
More coverage on the Bondi terror attack
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
