Bondi Beach attack: Does gunman Sajid Akram have family in Hyderabad?

Sajid Akram, one of the gunmen suspected of having carried out the Sunday terror attack at Bondi Beach in Australia’s Sydney that killed 15 people, has links to India’s Telangana. The 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, were behind Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years. The gunmen targeted people gathered at an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at the beach.

Sajid Akram was shot dead by the police during the attack, while Naveed was hospitalised after also being shot by the police. According to Australia’s federal police commissioner (AFP), Krissy Barrett, the Bondi Beach mass shooting was “a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State”.

Let’s take a closer look.

Bondi Beach shooter’s link to India

Sajid Akram is originally from Hyderabad but had “limited contact” with his family in the Indian city, law enforcement agencies said on Tuesday (December 16).

His family lives in a two-storey bungalow in the Telangana capital’s Tolichowki area. They used to reside near Hyderabad’s Charminar until 2002. “Somewhere between 2002 and 2004, they moved to the Tolichowli neighbourhood. In 2009, when Sajid’s father fell ill, he did not come to Hyderabad,” an intelligence official told Indian Express.

“The family is quiet; they keep to themselves. We have hardly seen Sajid here,” a neighbour said to the newspaper.

The Telangana Police said that Sajid Akram earned his BCom degree in Hyderabad and later migrated to Australia in November 1998 in search of employment. A government source told The News Minute (TNM) that Akram’s father had purchased an apartment in Hyderabad after returning from Saudi Arabia decades ago.

It was around this time that he moved to Australia on a student visa

In Australia, Akram married a woman “of European origin”, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Sajid Akram’s brother, who lives in Hyderabad, said that the family cut ties with him after his marriage to a Christian woman, TNM reported.

Akram had travelled to India only six times since moving to Australia in 1998. As per a Times of India (TOI) report, during one of his visits, he brought his wife to Hyderabad around 2001 to meet his parents. The couple held a traditional nikah in the city at the time.

Australian Home Affairs minister Tony Burke said earlier that Akram had arrived on a student visa, and later transferred to a partner visa in 2001.

Akram’s latest trip to India was in 2022 when he visited to dispose of an ancestral property. When the sale did not happen, he returned to Australia, Indian Express reported, citing an official. Akram did not even attend his father’s funeral, police said.

“Even when their father passed away, no one saw Sajid,” an elderly neighbour told the newspaper.

Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) B Reddy said in a statement, “It is understood that he did not travel to India at the time.”

“His brother has been running the house ever since then,” according to an official.

Speaking to BBC Telugu, a Telangana police official said Akram had “visited India on six occasions after migrating to Australia, primarily for family-related reasons such as property matters and visits to his elderly parents”.

“Telangana police have no adverse record against Sajid during his stay in India prior to his departure in 1998,” the police statement read.

Akram wasn’t ‘radicalised’ in India

As per the Telangana Police, Sajid Akram’s family members in Hyderabad have said they were unaware of his radical mindset or activities, or the circumstances that led to his radicalisation .

“The factors that led to the radicalisation of Sajid and his son Naveed appear to have no connection with India or any local influence in Telangana,” the Telangana DGP said in the statement.

Sources told TNM that Indian authorities visited Akram’s family in the city and collected information.

His brother said they had lost touch with him for several years. The family reportedly had a fallout over property disputes.

Akram did not even enquire about the health of their octogenarian mother, his brother said to TNM. 

Australian police have said that Akram and his son, Naveed, had travelled to the Philippines last month. Officials said that while the father used an Indian passport, the son went on an Australian one.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported, citing security sources, that the duo travelled to the Southeast Asian nation to receive “military-style training”. However, officials have yet to confirm those reports.

Philippines Foreign Affairs Minister Maria Theresa Lazaro and her Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, have reportedly agreed to “keep each other closely informed” of any developments related to the investigation into the Bondi Beach shooting.

Australia’s federal police commissioner has said that the suspected gunmen “aligned themselves with a terrorist organisation, not a religion.”

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Naveed Akram had links to Australia’s pro-Islamic State (IS) network, including an infamous Sydney cleric, reported ABC. 

Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, ASIO, looked into Naveed in 2019 after discovering his links to a Sydney-based IS cell.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Naveed first came on the radar of the authorities in 2019 “on the basis of being associated with others”.

However, at the time, an “assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence”.

With inputs from agencies