Sajid left the Indian city of Hyderabad in 1998; The intelligence agency interrogated Naveed in 2019
A woman holds a candle next to flowers placed in tribute on Bondi Beach to honor the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach on Sunday, in Sydney, Australia, December 16, 2025. Photo: Reuters
SYDNEY:
Indian police said Tuesday that one of two men suspected of carrying out a mass shooting on Bondi Beach was originally from southern India.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on people packing Sydney’s famous beach for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Sunday night, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.
Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the country’s Jews, but have so far offered few details about the gunmen’s deeper motivations.
Sajid was an Indian citizen who left his hometown of Hyderabad in 1998 and said in a statement that he had since had “limited contact with his family.”
His son Naveed is an Australian citizen, Indian police said.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, visiting Israel on Tuesday, offered his “very sincere and deep condolences” and said New Delhi condemns the attack “in the strongest possible terms.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the duo were driven by the “ideology of the Islamic State”. It gave one of the first indications that the couple had been radicalized by an “ideology of hate.”
“It appears this was motivated by the ideology of the Islamic State,” he told national broadcaster ABC.
The couple traveled to the Philippines before the shooting and authorities are investigating whether they met with Islamist extremists there, Australian media reported.
Manila’s immigration department confirmed to AFP that the couple spent almost all of November in the Philippines, with their final destination in Davao.
The province, on the southern island of Mindanao, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against the central government.
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 face growing questions about whether they could have acted sooner to thwart the attack.
Albanese said Naveed Akram, allegedly an unemployed bricklayer, had come to the attention of Australia’s intelligence agency in 2019.
“They interviewed him, they interviewed members of his family, they interviewed people around him,” Albanese said.
“At that time he was not considered a person of interest.”
Naveed reportedly told his mother on the day of the attack that he was going on a fishing trip.
Instead, authorities believe he was hiding in a rental apartment with his father.
Carrying long-barreled weapons, they riddled 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.
The dead included a 10-year-old girl and two Holocaust survivors, while 42 others suffered gunshot wounds and other injuries.
Australia’s leaders agreed on Monday to tighten laws that allowed Father Sajid to own six guns.
Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a gunman killed 35 people in the resort town of Port Arthur in 1996.
That attack sparked a world-leading offensive that included a gun buyback plan and limits on semi-automatic weapons.
However, many Australians are now questioning whether those laws are ready to deal with online sales and the steady rise in privately owned guns.
“This horrible situation makes me personally feel that they need to be stricter,” David Sovyer, 43, told AFP in Bondi Beach.
Retiree Allan McRae, 75, called for stricter gun laws. “The chance of this happening would have been reduced if more people had restricted access to a gun,” he told AFP.
The attack has also revived accusations that Australia is dragging its feet in the fight against antisemitism.
“Over the last four years, I have been very clear. And I have been very clear about the dangers of rising anti-Semitism,” Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, said Tuesday while visiting a memorial to the victims.
Netanyahu said Australia’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood this year had poured “oil on the fire of anti-Semitism.”
Australians have lined up to donate blood in record numbers, with more than 7,000 donors on Monday, according to the Australian Red Cross.
