The attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach rattled both Australia and India, as the story of Sajid Akram and his son Naveed began to come into focus. Their connection to Hyderabad—especially the quiet streets of Al Hasnath Colony in Toli Chowki—pushed the neighbourhood into the center of a global investigation almost overnight. Sajid Akram, 50, died in a shootout with Australian police on Sunday. Before he left for Australia 27 years ago, he called Hyderabad home.
The Hyderabad Connection
Sajid’s story started in Hyderabad, where he was the son of a retired armed forces officer and part of a respected family. His elder brother still practices medicine in the city. Sajid earned his Bachelor of Commerce at Anwar-Ul-Uloom College in Mallepally, and then left for Australia on a student visa in November 1998. But his relationship with his family back home fell apart after he married Venera Grosso, who’s European. His relatives said they cut off contact more than twenty years ago, disapproving of Sajid’s marriage. In all his time abroad, Sajid came back just six times. He didn’t return even when his father died in 2009, and his family says he showed almost no concern for his ailing mother.
Radicalization: A Foreign Influence
Radicalization didn’t happen in India. Telangana’s Director General of Police, Shivadhar Reddy, said Sajid had no criminal or adverse record during his years in India. The reasons behind Sajid and Naveed’s radicalization didn’t trace back to Hyderabad or anywhere else in Telangana. It happened in Australia, shaped by their life there and recent travels. Naveed, now 24 and an Australian citizen, had already caught the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation back in 2019 because of his ties with extremist circles in Sydney.
The Investigation Moves Forward
The investigation picked up speed when police found ISIS flags and improvised explosive devices in a car registered to Naveed. One of the biggest questions now centers on a month-long trip the pair took to the Philippines in November 2025. Authorities are digging into whether they received military-style training in Mindanao—a region known for harbouring extremist groups—before they returned to Sydney and carried out the Hanukkah festival attack. Hyderabad is left mourning and wrestling with the notoriety the Akrams brought to its doorstep. But local officials say clearly—the ideology that drove Sajid and Naveed had nothing to do with Hyderabad. That hate was forged far from the city where their story started.
