IIT Grad to Terror Suspect: Ahmad Murtaza, Accused in Gorakhnath Temple Attack

An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Abbasi grew up in Mumbai and Jamnagar, a senior official in the police department said.

The main accused in the attack, Ahmad Murtaza Abbasi, is now under arrest.

(Photo: Saadhya Mohan/The Quint)

Two days after the attack on PAC personnel deployed at the main gate of the Gorakhnath temple in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur, mystery continues to shroud the investigation.

Initially believed to be a lone wolf attack by a mentally unstable man, it has now escalated to a terror plot, according to an official statement.

The main accused, Ahmad Murtaza Abbasi, is now under arrest. He had been taken into custody after he attacked two police officers stationed outside the Gorakhnath temple with a sharp weapon while raising religious slogans, the police said.

Gorakhnath Temple is the headquarters of the Gorakhnath mutt, of which Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the head priest.

An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Abbasi, according to a senior official in the police department, grew up in Mumbai and Jamnagar.

According to sources, he hails from an influential family in Gorakhpur. His father is a retired legal advisor and his uncle is a prominent doctor in the city.

"His (Abbasi's) family relocated to Gorakhpur in 2020. Since then, he has been taking occasional trips to Mumbai," a senior cop on the condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, their residence in Gorakhpur was crawling with cops cordoning off the house to prevent the entry of media personnel.

Suffered From Mental Health Issues, Says Father

While senior bureaucrats in the state have officially called the incident an act of terror, Abbasi's family has been categorically refuting all allegations.

Soon after the incident, Abbasi's father in his brief interaction with the media claimed that his son suffered from mental health issues which later aggravated into suicidal tendencies.

As per his family, Murtaza started having mental health issues in 2017, and had been under observation at several places.

"Once, I got him a bicycle. A few days later he told me he feels like crashing his bicycle in another vehicle and giving up his life. We used to pray that he doesn't take any extreme steps," Murtaza's father, a legal consultant, said.

Speaking to The Quint, a neurologist in Ahmedabad who treated Murtaza in 2018, said that he had asked the latter to see a psychiatrist due to the issues he was facing.

He further said that Murtaza was suffering from "anxiety and complained of delusional thoughts," adding that he did not come for a follow-up after the first appointment.

IIT-Bombay Graduate, App Developer

Abbasi graduated from IIT-Bombay in 2015. According to his family, he landed a job at Reliance Petrochemical in Nagothane. However, he left the job due to his mental health issues which began aggravating.

"After quitting his job, he became an app developer but could not continue as it was not commercially viable," his father said.

Abbasi got married to a girl from UP's Jaunpur in 2019. Months later, the couple parted ways.

A team investigating the case visited the family of Abbasi's ex-wife in Jaunpur on Tuesday. Abbasi's ex-wife's father has claimed that the couple parted ways over strained ties between his daughter and her mother-in-law.