On 26th April, a 31-year-old Jaib Zubair Ansari stabbed two security guards with a knife in Mumbai’s Mira Road after they failed to recite Kalma. The police later arrested him. It has emerged that this ‘lone wolf’ attacker believed that he would be eliminated after murdering the two Hindu men. In this wake, Zubair Ansari left behind a note declaring allegiance to ISIS.
The note was found near Ansari’s laptop on a table at his residence. The arrested Jihadi’s lawyer, Abdul Wahab Khan, however, claims that the note was ‘planted’.
Citing police sources, the Indian Express reported that Ansari had formatted two phones to erase any links to external involvement. The police are probing it as a case of “self-radicalisation”.
“The note was clearly kept at a place so that it could be seen, and the two phones — one with and one without a SIM card — too, had been formatted. He had also changed into a black kurta after returning home, and he reasoned it was in line with the ‘ISIS ideology’,” police personnel who went to Ansari’s residence said.
The officer added, “He told us that he did not expect to return home alive and felt that after attacking others, the police would kill him. However, he survived and walked home… the entire point was to make a statement and instil fear in people. When we reached his residence, he was not shocked at all.”
According to the police, Zubair Ansari claimed that he had been facing a financial crunch for the past six months after his wife divorced him. He initially claimed to have thought of killing himself. The police, however, do not fully trust the arrested Jihadi.
Pertinently, when the police questioned Ansari about why he stabbed the two Hindu men, the jihadi said that he was triggered by the ‘plight’ of Palestinians, particularly children. An analysis of Zubair Ansari’s online search history showed that he was regularly visiting pro-ISIS websites and YouTube channels.
“He has said that the plight of the Palestinians, especially the death of children, triggered him. He also claimed that he made some donations for the cause, which we will verify,” the police said.
