Bondi mass shooting gunman Sajid Akram was from Hyderabad, India

Indian police said on Tuesday that one of the two gunmen behind Australia’s Bondi Beach mass shootings, Sajid Akram, was an Indian citizen who had left the country 27 years ago.

Akram and his son Naveed — who is listed on Australian immigration records as an Australian citizen, according to authorities — opened fire on people celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Sunday, killing 15.

“Sajid Akram is originally from Hyderabad, India. He migrated to Australia in search of employment approximately 27 years ago, in November 1998,” police in India’s southern state of Telangana said in a statement.

Read: Bondi Beach attack probe leads Australia to India

“As per information available from his relatives in India, Sajid Akram had limited contact with his family in Hyderabad over the past 27 years,” the statement added.

“He visited India on six occasions after migrating to Australia, primarily for family-related reasons such as property matters and visits to his elderly parents. It is understood that he did not travel to India even at the time of his father’s demise.”

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the father and son who carried out one of the country’s deadliest mass shootings were driven by “Islamic State ideology”.

Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the nation’s Jews.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns (L) talking with Ahmed Al Ahmed, the man who tackled and disarmed one of the Bondi beach attackers, at St George Hospital in Sydney. Photo: AFP

Telangana police said they had “no adverse record” against Sajid while he had been in India prior to his departure.

“The family members have expressed no knowledge of his radical mindset or activities, nor of the circumstances that led to his radicalisation”, the statement read.

“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”, it added.

The pair travelled to the Philippines before the shootings and authorities are investigating whether they met Islamist extremists during the trip, Australian media reported.

Manila’s immigration department confirmed to AFP that the pair spent almost all of November in the Philippines, with their final destination listed as Davao.

The province, on the southern island of Mindanao, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.

Authorities knew of attacker

Police found a car registered to Naveed Akram parked near the beach, with improvised bombs and two “homemade” Islamic State group flags inside, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

Authorities are also facing mounting questions over whether they could have acted earlier to foil the attack.

Albanese said Naveed Akram, reportedly an unemployed bricklayer, had come to the attention of Australia’s intelligence agency in 2019 but was not considered an imminent threat at the time.

“They interviewed him, they interviewed his family members, they interviewed people around him,” Albanese said.

Also Read: 11 killed, dozen injured in shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach

“He was not seen at that time to be a person of interest.”

Naveed reportedly told his mother on the day of the attack that he was heading out of the city on a fishing trip.

Instead, authorities believe that he was holed up in a rental apartment with his father.

Carrying long-barrelled guns, they peppered the beach and a nearby park with bullets for 10 minutes before police shot and killed 50-year-old Sajid.

Naveed, 24, remains in a coma in hospital under police guard.

Stricter gun control?

A 10-year-old girl and two Holocaust survivors were among those killed, while 42 others were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds and other injuries.

Australia’s leaders agreed on Monday to toughen laws that allowed father Sajid to own six guns.

Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the tourist town of Port Arthur in 1996.

That attack sparked a world-leading crackdown that included a gun buyback scheme and limits on semi-automatic weapons.

However, many Australians are now questioning whether those laws are equipped to deal with online sales and a steady rise in privately owned guns.

“This horrific situation now, it does make me personally feel that they need to be stricter,” David Sovyer, 43, told AFP at Bondi Beach.

Retiree Allan McRae, 75, said that “not a lot of people need a gun”.

“It would’ve reduced the possibility of it happening if more people had reduced access to a gun,” he told AFP.

The attack has also revived allegations that Australia is dragging its feet in the fight against antisemitism.

“The last four years, I was very clear. And I was very clear about the dangers of the rise in antisemitism,” Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, said while visiting a memorial to the victims on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood this year had poured “oil on the fire of antisemitism”.

Australians have lined up to give blood in record numbers, with more than 7,000 donors on Monday, according to Red Cross Australia.

A makeshift flower memorial next to Bondi Beach has grown, with mourners gathering to pay tribute to the victims.