The Navi Mumbai police have also launched an investigation to ascertain more information about Ahmad Murtuza Abbasi, the IIT engineer who attacked security personnel outside Gorakhpur’s Gorakhnath temple on Sunday.
According to a report by Mid Day, the Navi Mumbai police have also launched a parallel investigation to know the history of the accused and his acquaintances in Mumbai.
Abbasi, who is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), attempted to break into the Gorakhnath temple premises on April 3 while shouting Allahu Akbar. The 30-year-old chemical engineering graduate attacked the security personnel with a sickle when they tried to stop him, injuring two Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) constables.
गोरखपुर गोरक्षनाथ मंदिर के सुरक्षाकर्मियों पे IIT मुम्बई केमिकल इंजीनियर अहमद मुर्तज़ा का हमला…
— अज्ञानी (@MhaAgyaani) April 3, 2022
इन्हें कुछ भी पढ़ा लिखा लो कुछ भी बना दो … इनके ख़ून में सनी है ये कट्टरता .. pic.twitter.com/L1WkFU5XCL
The Navi Mumbai police want to confirm that there are no threats from the people who are known to him. Ahmad Murtuza Abbasi, who studied at the prestigious IIT-Bombay, had earlier lived in Navi Mumbai.
The Mumbai police, who provided information to the Uttar Pradesh police about Abbasi, have interrogated one maulana from Mumbai, who is alleged to be close to Ahmad Abbasi. During his stay in Mumbai, Abbasi used to meet the maulana frequently. Abbasi lived at Taj Heights in Navi Mumbai, which also had a madrassa on the ground floor.
According to the police, Abbasi often visited the madrassa at Taj Height, where the maulana used to preach. During the interrogation, the maulana said to the police that Abbasi was very calm and would not talk much to anyone.
“From here they went to Jamnagar… his father met me in 2016-17 and told me that he felt that someone had cast a spell on his son as his behaviour had completely changed. His father said ‘he does not sleep at night and behaves strangely,” said the maulana in his statement.
Apart from the Navi Mumbai police, the Maharashtra ATS has also launched an investigation to look into Abbasi’s links and the people associated with him to rule out any possible threat.
Abbasi had links with ISIS
Earlier, Ahmad Murtuza Abbasi had confessed to the police that his hatred bred from alleged atrocities committed against Muslims. The attacker said he was not happy with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) as he deemed them as an act of “injustice to Muslims”.
“I thought about the act from various angles before committing the crime. They [government] were implementing CAA and NRC against Muslims. Even in Karnataka, Muslims were being wronged. No one was doing anything about the issue. Someone had to do something. This is how I justified the act in my mind,” he said.
Abbasi confessed that he decided to attack Gorakhnath temple as there was a constant police presence at the premises, and it was easy for him to escape after attacking the cops. The police said that the confession indicated that Abbasi had been radicalised to the extent that he was even willing to die committing such crimes.
During the interrogation, it was revealed that Abbasi had sent lakhs of rupees to bank accounts linked to ISIS. The investigating agencies are now looking into its financial dealings with Abbasi.
In Abbasi’s defence, the father of the accused – Mohammed Munir, had claimed that his son had been mentally disturbed since 2017, due to which his marriage also broke down that year.
