The ‘Naveed Akram’ Myth: How a Fake Narrative Outran the Facts in Sydney

I was scrolling through my feed when the horrific news out of Bondi Beach broke. It’s the kind of headline that punches the air out of your lungs: fifteen dead at a Hanukkah gathering. In those first moments, your human instinct is to grieve, to sit in silence, and wait for the truth. But on social media, silence is a luxury we no longer have. While Australian police were still taping off the crime scene and counting the lost, I saw a different, uglier machine springing into action.

Indian propaganda accounts weren’t mourning; they were already in a loop to launch an “information war.” It started with a whisper and turned into a coordinated scream within minutes. My notifications lit up with a singular, deafening narrative pushed by Indian news outlets, Afghan handles, and a flurry of “breaking news” bots. They had a name and a target ready to go. They screamed that the shooter, “Naveed Akram,” was a “Pakistani terrorist.”

Bondi Beach suspect father arrived as ‘Indian national’: Immigration

But let’s be blunt: All those vile attempts since yesterday to link the Sydney attacker to Pakistan have been slapped in the face with a shoe.

The sheer desperation to link this tragedy to Pakistan was so intense that these accounts completely ignored the reality emerging from Australia. The facts have now totally vindicated Pakistan, and in an ironic twist, the failure of this propaganda has actually turned Pakistan’s image positive in the eyes of the outside world—because the world can now see the malicious, lying engine we are up against.

Here is the truth that shattered the lies: The shooter, Naveed Akram, was not a foreign infiltrator sent from Pakistan. He was born and raised right there in Australia. He is a product of Australian society, not Pakistan. His father, Sajid Akram, has been living in Australia for the past 27 years. This is a family deeply woven into the fabric of the country, not the fresh extremist arrival the trolls tried to sell us.

And then came the revelation that exposed the “Indian Nexus” directly. In an interview with Australia’s Channel 9Now / A Current Affair, a colleague of the shooter revealed the background that the trolls were desperately trying to hide. The colleague stated that the shooter’s father is Indian and his mother Italian. Suddenly, the anxiety and the non-stop “crying” from Indian handles since the incident makes perfect sense. They weren’t angry about terrorism; they were terrified of the optics. They tried to shift the blame to Pakistan before the world realized the shooter’s Indian roots.

Consider the official data from Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who revealed that the father, Sajid Akram, arrived on a student visa in 1998, moved to a partner visa in 2001, and has held a resident return visa ever since. Critically, Minister Burke refused to confirm the country of origin initially—so how did Indian media “establish” a Pakistani link within minutes? They didn’t. They invented it.

We also have to look at the weapons. The father, Sajid, held a valid Australian firearms license with six registered weapons, all recovered by police. In a country with strict gun laws like Australia, immigrants with unchecked backgrounds don’t just get handed an arsenal. This confirms long-term residency and standing. The son, Naveed, was known to NSW Police and security agencies, highlighting a local surveillance failure, not an external plot.

The most gut-wrenching part of this “information war” was the collateral damage. In their rush to defame a nation, these propagandists wrongly identified an innocent, unrelated 31-year-old man—also named Naveed Akram—who had nothing to do with the crime. They plastered his face everywhere because of his Pakistani university links, forcing him to plead for his safety online. The real shooter was 24 and Australian-born. They didn’t care about the age gap or the truth; they only cared about the smear.

The irony here is deeply painful for the propagandists. Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms. We unequivocally condemned the Bondi Beach massacre because we know what it’s like. We have buried tens of thousands of our own due to terrorism often fueled from across our borders. But today, the truth is out.

The shooter was born and raised in Australia. His father has lived there for 27 years. The links point to Indian and Italian heritage, not Pakistani. The Indo-Afghan lie has collapsed, and Pakistan stands vindicated.