IIT-trained attacker in Gorakhpur has always been Islamic: Ex-wife

While it is fashionable to say that Muslim terrorists are aberrations from mainstream Islam, the former wife of Murtaza Abbasi, the IIT Mumbai-trained engineer who attacked the guards of Gorakhnath Temple, has busted the myth by saying that this terrorist always followed the tenets of the religion. He did not even have any interest in married life, his estranged wife Salma said today.

The IIT graduate’s father-in-law said that he was completely “normal” and had no mental issues when he married off his daughter to him.

On 3 April, Abbasi had attacked two police constables with a sharp-edged weapon at the gate of Gorakhnath Temple and tried to barge into the premises. He was overpowered and arrested by the police. After the incident, Abbasi’s father Muneer Ahmed claimed that his son was mentally unstable.

Twitter users received the defence with amusement. Many users asked why an insane person was sharp enough to identify a temple and attack it rather than attack a mosque, driven by his supposed insanity.

Abbasi’s father-in-law blew up the defence too, saying the IIT graduate was completely normal at the time of his marriage. Salma parted ways with Abbasi just months after their marriage in 2019. She said in the period that she stayed with him, Abbasi rarely spoke and she never had access to his laptop or mobile, which was why she could not say with confidence if Zakir Naik’s videos, which have been recovered from the device, had radicalised him.

After arresting Abbasi, Uttar Pradesh Police raided Abbasi’s house in Gorakhpur and collected his laptop and a mobile phone that contained videos related to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan.

Salma said she sought divorce from Abbasi not because of his perceived mental illness but because he had no interest in married life and that her mother-in-law used to torture her over minor issues.

Today, a team of Uttar Pradesh ATS reached Navi Mumbai to gather more information on Abbasi. The police headed to Mumbai after they found that Abbasi’s Aadhaar card mentioned his residential address as “Millenium Tower, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai”. It was in the Bombay branch of IIT that the terrorist had received his engineering degree from.

The Uttar Pradesh ATS team visited Millenium Tower in the Sanpada node near Vashi yesterday. The cops found that the flat mentioned in the Aadhaar card was sold in 2013. An official told news agency PTI that Abbasi’s father Munir Abbasi has purchased another flat at Taj Heights Apartment in sector 50 in Seawoods Darave, Navi Mumbai. The ATS team also visited that flat. They found that the Abbasi family had shifted to Gorakhpur in October 2020 and the flat was rented to one Muslim Khan during the lockdown.