Preachers, divorce, eviction: What pushed Mumbai ‘lone wolf’ who stabbed guards

Investigators first examined whether anyone had guided Ansari but found no such evidence, an official said. "Based on his interrogation and other evidence, we have ruled out any outsider being involved in this."

A recent divorce, being asked by his landlord to leave his rented home, and his ‘obsessive food habits’, including a distrust of food cooked by strangers, drove a US-returned man to further despair before he carried out a ‘lone wolf’ attack in Mira Road, stabbing two security guards near his residence on April 27 after asking their religion, says the nearly 2,500-page chargesheet filed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) last week.

Zaib Ansari (31) had been ‘self-radicalised’ by watching online videos of extremist preachers, the chargesheet says. The two guards were injured and later discharged from hospital.

The ATS has invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against Ansari, who is in jail, and claimed that a note found at his home said: “lone wolves will pounce on you”.

Investigators first examined whether anyone had guided Ansari but found no such evidence, an official said. “Based on his interrogation and other evidence, we have ruled out any outsider being involved in this.”

Ansari “was mentally disturbed”, the official said, and watching videos of preachers such as Anwar al-Awlaki on social media radicalised him. Al-Awlaki was a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent linked to a series of terror attacks globally. “He was further disturbed by reports of killings of children in Palestine,” the official said.

Ansari moved from the US in 2019. In the US, he made money coaching students in tennis, but he had no regular source of income in India, the agency found. After his divorce, he was living alone, and his landlord asked him to leave because she did not want to rent to bachelors.

These factors, along with the attacks on Palestine, drove him to extreme content online, which radicalised him over six to eight months, an officer said.

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“While his family members are based in the US, we have recorded the statement of his mother who had come down to visit him and his Kurla-based uncle with whom he was initially staying,” the official said.

During earlier court proceedings, Ansari’s lawyer told the court that he has schizophrenia and was previously on medication. The lawyer also said Ansari eats only vegetarian food that he prepares himself, and never eats food cooked by others, not even at a relative’s home or a family gathering. Police officials too initially faced trouble over his food while he was in custody.

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