Watch: Pakistani Man 'Fears For His Life' After Being Wrongly Linked As Bondi Shooter

A case of mistaken identity has left a Sydney man fearing for his safety after his photo was falsely linked to the Bondi Beach shooting.

The Pakistani businessman living in Windsor, Australia, said he is "traumatised" after social media users circulated his picture alongside claims that he was one of the shooters - simply because he shares the same name as the alleged attacker: Naveed Akram.

As misinformation spread rapidly across social media following the attack on Sunday that left 15 people dead, the 30-year-old found himself at the centre of a viral storm, facing fear, distress, and reputational damage despite having no connection to the crime.

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To protect himself and clear his name in connection with this horrific act, the Pakistani national posted a video online. "This has been deeply shocking for me," said Naveed, who was alerted to it by his friends. "I was extremely worried about my safety."

Seeing his photos splashed online as a mass murderer shook him: "I am traumatised by this false association. My photo being circulated everywhere has left me stressed, scared, and unable to move around freely."

Naveed, who moved to Australia in 2018, pleaded with media outlets and social media sites to verify facts before sharing such damaging misinformation: "I am an innocent person caught up in a case of mistaken identity."

• Watch him clarify the misinformation:

Several Indian media outlets were also quick to spread the narrative that the Bondi Beach shooter was Pakistani, seizing on the shared name between the alleged attacker and Naveed Akram. Publishing this information without checking the facts, fuelled misinformation and intensified the ordeal for Naveed.

On Tuesday, Indian police said that the dead gunman in Australia's Bondi Beach shooting incident, Sajid Akram, was originally from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Sajid is the father of the other shooter.

Naveed was not the only person caught up in this misinformation storm. False reports spread across social media after the Bondi Beach shooting.

The hero bystander who bravely tackled one of the shooters and disarmed him has been identified as Ahmed Al Ahmed, a 43-year-old father of two and a Syrian Muslim. However, misinformation quickly spread on X, with some users falsely claiming the rescuer was a 47-year-old IT worker with a British name. X's AI chatbot, Grok, also repeated this misinformation and responded to users with false claims.

While some social media accounts correctly identified Ahmed, they falsely claimed he was a Maronite Christian.

In the case of the actual shooter, even before he was identified by authorities, his driver's licence and personal details were widely shared on social media. Many posts falsely claimed he was a former member of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), while others labelled him a Mossad agent, suggesting the attack was a 'false-flag' operation, an incident made to appear as if carried out by someone else.

More false claims circulated, including that he had studied at Islamabad University and was sent by Iran to carry out the attack. Some posts even wrongly implicated a Lebanese national of Palestinian descent.

The Bondi Beach tragedy took lives and stunned the world, but the online vigilantism it sparked is another reminder of the danger of recklessness if fact-checking is abandoned in the race for answers.

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