Finally Israil-led international media accomplice with India and Afghanistan, the unfolding tragedy at Sydney’s Bondi Beach has provided a stark reminder of how quickly grief and fear can be weaponised into disinformation, as recently Australian government has contacted with the Indian spy agency asking to information to find the identity of the terrorist involved in the Bondi Beach attack. Some internal sources, in complete anonymity, claimed that India’s spy agency was contacted because to know any link or clue as Australia openly supported Canada’s stance against India’s RAW for orchestrating Canadian citizens murder at Canadian soil.
Some sources also claim that the slain terrorist Sajid Akram reached Australia on student visa, identified as Indian origin, while other culprit, his son Naveed Akram was an Australian citizen. In the immediate aftermath of the deadly shooting, the shock and horror felt across Australia were accompanied by a torrent of speculation and international finger-pointing. Media outlets in Israel, India, and Afghanistan were among the first to suggest links to Pakistan, a claim that, on closer examination, appears entirely unfounded.
As investigators worked to piece together the events of that fateful day, details began to emerge about the gunmen that painted a far more nuanced picture than the narratives circulating online. Sajid Akram, the 50-year-old father who was shot dead at the scene, was initially reported by some foreign outlets as being of Pakistani origin. Yet information from colleagues and people familiar with the family suggested otherwise. Naveed Akram, his 24-year-old son, was described as having a mixed heritage: the father of Indian descent, the mother Italian. Those who knew Naveed painted a picture of a young man immersed in ordinary Australian life, unremarkable in his demeanour and entirely unsuspecting to the capacity for the violence that would unfold.
The shooting itself occurred during a Jewish gathering on Bondi Beach, leaving at least fifteen people dead, with subsequent reports later confirming the toll at sixteen. Around forty others were injured, including two police officers and Naveed, who was reported to remain in a coma in the days following the attack. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the nation, emphasising that the attack appeared to have been carried out by the two individuals acting alone, without the support of any organised extremist group, though they appeared to hold extremist views. His statement was clear, grounded in the evidence available to the authorities, yet it did little to halt the flood of foreign speculation.
One of the first assertions linking the attackers to Pakistan came from the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post. It claimed that the gunmen were Pakistani, and the story quickly gained traction, amplified by social media accounts linked to India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. Some Western media outlets went further, suggesting without evidence that US intelligence had corroborated Pakistani involvement. These claims spread rapidly, gaining a life of their own in an environment primed for sensationalism and confirmation bias.
Yet as Pakistani officials and sources familiar with the local community confirmed, there was no evidence to suggest that either Sajid or Naveed Akram had any connection to Pakistan. Contrary to reports in some Indian media, Sajid Akram had not entered Australia on a tourist visa. Instead, official records showed he arrived in 1998 on a student visa, which was later converted into a partner visa following his marriage to an Australian woman named Warina in 2001. He had lived in Australia continuously since then, leaving only three times, and had been a member of a local gun club for over a decade, legally owning six firearms that were recovered by police following the incident.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, confirmed these details publicly, underscoring that the gunman had been part of the local community for years and that there was nothing in his history to suggest foreign allegiance or ties to any overseas intelligence networks. The young man, Naveed, likewise, had grown up in Australia and had been known to friends and colleagues as an unassuming presence, someone with no apparent inclination toward violence or political extremism.
Despite these clarifications, narratives implicating Pakistan persisted, demonstrating the ease with which tragic events can be distorted to serve broader political agendas. Indian and Afghan outlets, in particular, seized upon the tragedy to reinforce longstanding suspicions about Pakistan, while social media networks provided fertile ground for these stories to proliferate. In the absence of concrete evidence, these narratives relied on assumption, misrepresentation, and the power of repetition, leaving ordinary readers confused and families on both sides of the dispute caught in the crossfire of international speculation.
The Bondi tragedy, in this context, has become more than a local catastrophe; it has been transformed into a lens through which existing geopolitical tensions are refracted. What began as a violent act with devastating consequences for a small community has been repurposed by some as a symbol of supposed national culpability, revealing how readily information—or misinformation—can be harnessed to reinforce preconceived notions. The rush to assign blame underscores the dangers of hasty reporting, particularly in an age when social media enables unverified claims to travel faster than the truth.
For Australia, the focus remains firmly on supporting the victims and conducting a thorough, impartial investigation. Families of the deceased and injured are grappling with the senseless loss of life, while communities mourn collectively on Bondi Beach and across the nation. Police and intelligence officials continue to piece together the events that led to the shooting, interrogating motives, backgrounds, and potential influences, but there has been no substantiation of any link to Pakistan or any external agency. In this atmosphere of grief, it is crucial that discourse remains grounded in verified evidence rather than speculation, allowing the investigative process to proceed without the distortion of geopolitically motivated narratives.
Equally significant is the human dimension of the tragedy. Friends and neighbours of the Akram family have described them as ordinary Australians caught in extraordinary circumstances, a family with roots extending across continents, but united by the life they had built in Sydney. Sajid Akram’s engagement with the local gun club, his family life with his wife Warina, and Naveed’s upbringing in Australia collectively depict a reality far removed from the claims of foreign conspiracies. By focusing on these human details, the public can better understand that tragedies do not always fit neatly into political or ethnic narratives, and that individuals are complex and multifaceted rather than proxies for national identity.
