MIRA BHAYANDER: A day after a 31-year-old man was arrested for stabbing two security guards at an under-construction site in Mira Road’s Naya Nagar, it emerged that he had allegedly asked them to identify their religion before stabbing them.The assailant, Zaib Zubair Ansari, was handed over by local cops to the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Monday afternoon. A local court has remanded Ansari to ATS custody till May 4.
While agency reports quoted ATS officials as saying the incident appeared to be a ‘lone wolf’ attack, CM Devendra Fadnavis said the attacker had been “self-radicalised”.One of the injured guards, Rajkumar Mishra (50), who was grievously injured, is in ICU in a local hospital and is stable, while the other, Subroto Sen (31), who suffered minor injuries, filed a complaint at Naya Nagar police station.Police said Ansari had been living for several years in the US, where he completed his graduation. He returned to India in 2020 and rented a house in Mira Road, where he has been living alone.Late Monday evening, ATS and the forensic team checked Ansari’s rented house on the third floor of a building nearby and seized digital devices like his laptop and mobile phones. An officials said a few references to the Islamic State were found in the material seized, and also a written letter which made a mention of such an attack and reflected a radicalised mind.Attacker asked my religion, came back in an hour & knifed me: GuardThe Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has sealed the home of the “lone wolf” arrested for stabbing two security guards in Mira Road and is analysing the material seized from there, an official said.The attack took place at an under-construction site barely 200m from the building in which the suspect, Zaib Zubair Ansari, lives.In his police complaint, one of the victims, Subroto Sen, stated that at around 3 am on Monday, Ansari first came up to him as he was guarding the front of the site and asked for the address of a local mosque. When he told Ansari the address, Ansari asked him if he knew the name of the mosque.As the guard said “no,” Ansari asked him, “Are you a Hindu?” The guard replied in the affirmative, and Ansari left. He returned around 4.30 am, Sen said, and, stating “You are a Hindu, correct?” held the guard’s right hand and pulled out a knife to stab him. Sen said he tried to evade the attack and got stabbed in the back.
Sen told the police that he somehow escaped the attacker’s grip and ran into the supervisor guard Mishra’s cabin, but Ansari followed him there. “He asked Mishra, ‘Tu bhi Hindu hain na?’ (‘You too are a Hindu, aren’t you?’) and then asked him to recite the ‘kalma’, and when Mishra couldn’t recite it, stabbed him in the stomach,” Sen stated in the FIR. Ansari was identified with the help of CCTV footage and caught within one hour of the attack by police.Local residents helped the two guards reach the local hospital. One of the residents, who did not wish to be named, said, “The guards were terrified and were asking for help. We took them immediately to the cops and then to hospital.”Police said Ansari had completed his graduation in biology while he was in US with his parents. His parents continue to stay in the US. He was married to a US citizen of Indian origin but had been divorced. He used to conduct online maths, chemistry and English classes for students based in Abu Dhabi, police said.A staffer at the Mira Road society where he lived said he hardly saw Ansari as he never opened the door and “sometimes his garbage would be kept outside.”A ‘lone wolf attack’ refers to a terrorist act carried out by an individual without any help from an organisation.Terrorists who targeted tourists in Pahalgam in April 2025 had allegedly asked one of the victims to recite the ‘kalma’ before shooting him.The ATS on Tuesday issued a press note stating that according to the director general of police’s order of April 27, a police case had been registered in the Mira Road attack under BNS sections 109 (attempted murder), 196(1) (promoting enmity between different groups) and 118(2) (causing grievous hurt with weapons).(Inputs by Mateen Hafeez)
