India-Australia News and Discussion

[Amber G.]

Three Indian international students were injured in the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, according to early reports, with at least two believed to be receiving treatment in the hospital. (Per The Australia Today)

[SRajesh]

multiple reports that one of the Terrorist travelled to Phillipines on an Indian Passport!!
Australian authorities apparently asking Indian officials about this link!!
If true this will be truly embarassing

[uddu]

Joint Press Statement by Israeli FM Sa’ar and Indian FM Jaishankar in Jerusalem
Joint Press Statement by Israeli FM Sa’ar and Indian FM Jaishankar in Jerusalem

[sudhan]

multiple reports that one of the Terrorist travelled to Phillipines on an Indian Passport!!
Australian authorities apparently asking Indian officials about this link!!
If true this will be truly embarassing

Most definitely fake passport (details faked using a stolen passport)

[A_Gupta]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 025-12-16/

In its statement on Tuesday, Telangana police said Sajid Akram visited India on six occasions, mainly for family-related reasons, since he migrated to Australia in 1998.
There was no "adverse record" on him before he left India, the statement added.

[A_Gupta]

The above was Reuters. This is the Deccan Herald:

Bondi beach shooting | Police say one of 2 gunmen originally from Hyderabad, had limited contact with kin

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/tela ... ly-3832822

Intelligence agencies have traced Sajid Akram’s extended family to the city’s Mehdipatnam area, from where he had migrated to Australia nearly 27-years-ago on a student visa. Sources said Sajid had visited Hyderabad seven times since settling abroad....

Intelligence agencies have traced Sajid Akram’s extended family to the city’s Mehdipatnam area, from where he had migrated to Australia nearly 27-years-ago on a student visa. Sources said Sajid had visited Hyderabad seven times since settling abroad....

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/tela ... ly-3832822

[sudhan]

multiple reports that one of the Terrorist travelled to Phillipines on an Indian Passport!!
Australian authorities apparently asking Indian officials about this link!!
If true this will be truly embarassing

Most definitely fake passport (details faked using a stolen passport)

So he was indeed originally from Hyderabad..

[A_Gupta]

The Indian Express reports:

Telangana Police have confirmed that Sajid Akram — one of the shooters involved in Australia’s Bondi Beach terror attack — is from Hyderabad, India. Telangana DGP B. Shivdhar Reddy told The Indian Express that Sajid Akram, 50, completed his B.Com in Hyderabad and migrated to Australia in November 1998 after marrying a woman of European origin.
Sajid is learnt to have visited India on six occasions after migrating to Australia.


—— why this is the best report: the source is named.

[A_Gupta]

The Telangana police press note is apparently not available to the public directly but was sent to accredited media.

Microsoft Copilot reconstructs the press note as follows, using what is common across all news reports:

Sajid Akram, one of the suspects in the recent mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia, is a native of Hyderabad.
He migrated to Australia 27 years ago, in November 1998, after completing his B.Com degree in Hyderabad, in search of employment.
He had limited contact with his family in Hyderabad over the past 27 years.
He visited India on six occasions after migrating to Australia.
He carried an Indian passport.
He subsequently married Vanessa (or Venera) Grosso, a woman of European origin, and settled permanently in Australia.
His son, Naveed Akram, and his daughter were born in Australia and are Australian citizens.
The factors that led to the radicalisation of Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram appear to have no connection with India or any local influence in Telangana.
Family members in Hyderabad expressed no knowledge of his radical mindset or activities.

[A_Gupta]

Not quite the place for a post-mortem, but:

The short version is this: the “Pakistani origin” claim did not come from Australian police, Indian police, or any official source. It began with early, fast‑moving media reports—mostly from outlets that published before the Telangana Police issued their clarification—and then spread rapidly through social media amplification.

Here’s a clean list of the earliest identifiable outlets that first claimed Pakistani origin:

Firstpost (15 Dec)
National Herald India (15 Dec)
IANS‑syndicated reports (15 Dec)
Moneycontrol, citing The Jerusalem Post (14–15 Dec)

These appear to be the origin points of the misinformation.

----
The Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemi ... cle-880274
"One of the terrorists who carried out the shooting attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah party was likely a Muslim man of Pakistani origin, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News."

The Jerusalem Post mis-cited ABC News:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-14/ ... /106141750

Copilot says:

"Because the Jerusalem Post phrased it as an ABC‑sourced claim, other outlets (e.g., Moneycontrol, Firstpost) repeated it as if it were verified.
But the primary source — ABC — never said it. This is how the “Pakistani origin” narrative gained early momentum."

[S_Madhukar]

Folks this is what I was worrying about - we are being dragged into the list of South Asia undesirables - at least the narrative is being set up for that. After 9/11 we proudly said our Abdul is not like others - in a decade we had youth travel to Syria… The Delhi module is another example … we better crackdown hard on madrasa education else any PIO will be targeted abroad considering we don’t own the press. Alarm bells should be ringing .

[uddu]

Not quite the place for a post-mortem, but:

The short version is this: the “Pakistani origin” claim did not come from Australian police, Indian police, or any official source. It began with early, fast‑moving media reports—mostly from outlets that published before the Telangana Police issued their clarification—and then spread rapidly through social media amplification.

Here’s a clean list of the earliest identifiable outlets that first claimed Pakistani origin:

Firstpost (15 Dec)
National Herald India (15 Dec)
IANS‑syndicated reports (15 Dec)
Moneycontrol, citing The Jerusalem Post (14–15 Dec)

These appear to be the origin points of the misinformation.

----
The Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemi ... cle-880274
"One of the terrorists who carried out the shooting attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah party was likely a Muslim man of Pakistani origin, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News."

The Jerusalem Post mis-cited ABC News:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-14/ ... /106141750

Copilot says:

"Because the Jerusalem Post phrased it as an ABC‑sourced claim, other outlets (e.g., Moneycontrol, Firstpost) repeated it as if it were verified.
But the primary source — ABC — never said it. This is how the “Pakistani origin” narrative gained early momentum."

]Fact Check: Bondi Beach attack - Pakistani X accounts peddle AI-manipulated videos of Australian and Indian politicians, journalists
ISI did not even leave Owaisi.
The first news that I saw was from News18 and CNN. Firstpost is claiming that the news being circulated stating their video is generated using deepfake.
https://newsmeter.in/fact-check/bondi-b ... sts-759879

[Amber G.]

^^^
Pakistani propaganda accounts are circulating an AI-generated image falsely claiming that the Philippine OSINT community released exclusive images of Bondi Beach shooter Naveed Akram with the Defense Attaché of India to the Philippines, Captain Kant Kothari, in Manila. These claims are entirely false and fabricated. The image is not real but generated using artificial intelligence. There are no verified or credible sources supporting this claim. A few days ago, a similar fake AI-generated imageof NSA Ajit Doval was circulated by the same propaganda networks.

INTENT: Propaganda accounts are circulating AI-generated images with self-invented claims to set their narrative against India over the Bondi Beach shooting.

[Vayutuvan]

multiple reports that one of the Terrorist travelled to Phillipines on an Indian Passport!!
Australian authorities apparently asking Indian officials about this link!!
If true this will be truly embarassing

If the man Ahmad al Ahmad turns out to be from Shittistan or SOK, that will be even more embarrassing.
Shittistanis are quite capable of faking a passport for that guy.

[arshyam]

Folks, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. That Sajid guy left India 27 years ago, way back in 1998 and is presumably an Oz citizen by now (?). So whatever radical nonsense he got into had nothing to do with India. Second, his son, the other attacker, was born in Australia and is an Oz citizen. Again, nothing to do with us.

If anyone tries to brush India with this nonsense, then we can use the same brush to tie Oz itself with it, since these people have very strong ties to Australia, way more than a tenous 27-year old past link to India, and they clearly got radicalized within Australia itself, radicalized enough to turn on their fellow country men and women.

Second, we Indians need to figure out and start practicing the art of "othering", wherein someone acting against our standard set of values is denounced as not part of the mainstream. Islamists do this very well, by "othering" any terrorists (who themselves use Islam to justify their terror) as un-Islamic and move on. Americans do it well too - lots of ways to be labeled as un-American and get their to society wash its hands off of any responsibility. In contrast, we Indians immediately start introspecting with guilt about our image when some bad actor with a tenuous link to our country does something reprehensible. We even have a civilisational code about good and justifiable behaviour - dharma, and these actions are clearly against dharma (no such equivalent for other societies, yet they manage to "other" such actors), but we don't seem to use it. What this Sajid guy did was an un-Indian/adharmic act, and deserves the utmost condemnation. But beyond that, no need for any emotional investment into this guy's purported Indian background.

I look at this sad and horrendous incident as an Australian internal issue, and we should offer help and support to them to the extent they want it. Beyond that, it's nothing different from the series of terror attacks we have lived with for decades. Maybe this will prompt the Aussies to better appreciate our concerns on terror, but that's about it.

[Amber G.]

For record: Ahmad (Ahmed) al-Ahmed, - 43 years old. He was shot multiple times ) and hospitalized but is reported to be in stable condition and recovering.

- Nationality / origin: He was born in Syria (in or near the Idlib region) and later moved to Australia in the mid-2000s.
- He ran a small fruit shop in Sydney. He is a father of two daughters.

[A_Gupta]

I am irritated at the poor quality of news reporting. I wouldn’t say embarrassed.

[Rudradev]

Perpetual victims get 'embarrassed'.

Effective fighters seek opportunity.

For example: "the Sydney gunman turned out to be a Muslim of Indian origin. Obviously, once they leave India, Indian Muslims are as capable of becoming violently radicalized by jihadi recruitment organizations as Muslim immigrants from anywhere else. In the US, security agencies would be well-advised to keep a close watch on the Indo American Muslim Council, which has publicly espoused many Islamist-adjacent positions and is known to be linked to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence."

[pravula]

For record: Ahmad (Ahmed) al-Ahmed, - 43 years old. He was shot multiple times ) and hospitalized but is reported to be in stable condition and recovering.

- Nationality / origin: He was born in Syria (in or near the Idlib region) and later moved to Australia in the mid-2000s.
- He ran a small fruit shop in Sydney. He is a father of two daughters.

I heard that he was an ex-cop. There was another couple who tried to take down one of them and were shot iirc.

[SRajesh]

So the Myth that Our Abduls are not like others that is laid to rest?? at last
We need to make list of Indian Origin Jihadis blowing themselves up or killing innocent victims outisde India.
Glasgow Airport Bomber from Bengaluru
This chap from Hyderabad.
??Did that Sri Lankan Bombers have connections to TN group!! there was some rumours at that time
All from South India, where the oft repeated claim was it was lot more Ganga-Jamuna compared to north as we did not suffer too much from the Mongols/Mughals!!
And if we look at Terror activites within India, one might find a lot more Southern Abduls involved in these activities.
As the Movie Dhurandhar depicts, the Narco/Smuggling/Terror network is probably lot more active in the south.
The Southern Muslims have lot more visceral hatred but do a very convicing act of Sab ka Saath!!.
Ths is partly because of the cultivation of these Vote Banks by Congis who have ruled southern states longer than anybody else. Plus the Left and Dravidan Politics with even more overt hatred of Hindus, last 70 years they have been allowed to prosper and consolidate.