Bondi Beach shooter, Sajid Akram, did not visit India even after father’s death: Cops

By_shalini oraon

The Bondi Beach Tragedy: A Story of Unanswered Questions and Unvisited Graves

The name Sajid Akram is now etched into Australian history for the worst of reasons. On a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre, Akram embarked on a violent, deadly rampage that left six innocent people dead and others injured, including a nine-month-old baby, before he was fatally shot by police. In the frantic aftermath, as authorities scrambled to understand the “obviously horrific” act, a small but poignant detail emerged from initial police briefings: Akram, despite his father’s death, had not travelled to India to pay his respects. This seemingly peripheral fact is not just a biographical footnote; it is a window into the complex, shadowy life of the perpetrator and the profound challenges of understanding radicalisation and mental distress in an interconnected world.

The Man Behind the Mayhem: Fragments of a Fractured Life

Sajid Akram was a 40-year-old man known to police, not for terrorism, but for mental health concerns. Described as a “quiet man” who kept to himself, he lived in a small, sparse unit in Sydney’s southwest. Neighbours reported infrequent sightings, and he appeared to have few, if any, meaningful social connections. This self-imposed isolation is a common precursor in many cases of mass violence, where an individual becomes detached from the moderating influences of community and family.

It is within this context of isolation that the detail about his father gains significance. The death of a parent is a universal, profoundly disruptive life event. For most, it triggers a mandatory pilgrimage—emotional, cultural, and physical. For the child of migrant parents, this journey “back home” is often a sacred duty, a crucial act of familial and cultural closure. The failure to undertake it is a glaring red flag, a sign of a profound rupture. Police, in revealing this, were subtly pointing to a man who had potentially severed his most fundamental ties.

Possible Reasons for the Unmade Journey: A Tangle of Motivations

Why would a son not visit his grieving family, not stand at his father’s grave? Investigators and psychologists would be exploring several, non-mutually exclusive possibilities:

1. Severed Familial Bonds: The most straightforward explanation is that Akram had become estranged from his family, possibly over lifestyle choices, ideological shifts, or personal conflicts. This estrangement would have compounded his isolation, removing a critical safety net.
2. Financial or Legal Immobility: While possible, this seems less likely for an event as significant as a parent’s death. More plausible is that he feared travel due to outstanding legal issues or perceived surveillance, real or imagined.
3. The Grip of Radical Ideology: This is the dimension that triggers the most urgent public and security concern. Counter-terrorism experts note that some radical ideologies actively encourage or demand the rejection of “worldly” attachments, including family, especially if the family is seen as adhering to a different, “impure” Islamic practice (a concept known as al-wala’ wal-bara). A commitment to a violent, fringe interpretation could have led him to view the funeral ritual as an illegitimate practice or an unworthy distraction from his perceived “mission.” His reported act of shouting about the war in Gaza during the attack suggests a mind framed by a global jihadist narrative, wherein local violence is justified by distant conflict.
4. The Vortex of Mental Illness: NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb stressed investigators were not ruling out Akram’s “mental health” as a factor. Severe mental illness—such as paranoid schizophrenia or a debilitating depressive psychosis—can cause a complete withdrawal from reality and social obligations. Delusions of persecution or grandeur could have made the logistics of international travel seem impossible or irrelevant. The act itself, with its apparent lack of a coherent political demand or escape plan, bears hallmarks of a catastrophic breakdown.

Crucially, these factors are not distinct silos. Mental health crises can make an individual exponentially more susceptible to the black-and-white certainties of extremist ideology. Conversely, immersion in a paranoid, online extremist ecosystem can mimic and exacerbate psychiatric symptoms. His failure to visit India sits at the intersection of this tangle: was it a symptom of illness, a tenet of ideology, or a simple marker of a broken relationship?

The Investigative Imperative: Following the Digital and Human Trails

For counter-terrorism detectives, this detail immediately signposted crucial lines of inquiry. Akram’s relationship with his family became a primary focus. Were they aware of his radical views? Had they tried to intervene? Their testimony could provide a timeline for his radicalisation or deterioration. Simultaneously, his digital footprint—every search, every encrypted message, every forum post—was scoured for evidence of contact with extremist influencers or for signs that he was consuming and internalising propaganda that glorifies violence and severs earthly ties.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police would also be examining his potential connections to any networks, however loose or digital. His act of targeting women (five of the six killed were women) added another horrific layer, prompting analysis of misogynistic extremist currents, which often overlap with wider violent ideologies.

A Community Left Grappling with Grief and Uncertainty

For the wider Australian community, and particularly for the Muslim and Indian diaspora communities, this detail adds a layer of painful complexity. For many, the immediate fear was of a backlash, a misplaced blame cast upon entire communities for the actions of one profoundly disturbed or radicalised individual. Community leaders were quick to condemn the violence unequivocally and to extend heartfelt condolences to the victims’ families, emphasising that such acts are anathema to Islamic teaching.

The fact that Akram did not go to India may, in a tragic way, help insulate his family abroad from the immediate media storm, but it also leaves them with an additional, private grief: the grief of a son who was lost long before he took lives, a son who did not come home one last time.

Conclusion: The Unvisited Grave as a Metaphor

The story of Sajid Akram is, at its core, a story of disconnection. He disconnected from his family, failing to honour his father in death. He disconnected from his community, living a ghost-like existence. And in a crowded Sydney shopping centre, he violently disconnected six people from their lives and loved ones forever.

The police revelation that he did not visit India after his father’s death is more than a piece of trivia. It is a stark symbol of that disconnection. It underscores a fundamental truth in preventing such tragedies: the importance of connection. It highlights the critical need for robust mental health support systems, for community and family channels through which concerns can be raised, and for counter-radicalisation programs that can identify and address alienation before it curdles into catastrophic violence. In the end, the unvisited grave in India stands as a silent, unanswered question in a case filled with them—a haunting reminder of the human pathways that, when severed, can lead to the most inhuman of ends.