On April 3, 29-year-old Ahmed Murtaza tried to storm the Gorakhnath temple and injured two PAC jawans with a sharp-edged weapon. Murtaza is a chemical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

Here it is important to note that the Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath is the head priest of Gorakhnath temple, and there were hundreds of devotees there due to the occasion of Navratri. He was brandishing a large sickle and roaming around the temple premises, while most of the people took cover and a few threw stones at him. Soon few devotees along with PAC jawans surrounded him and pinned him to the ground.

Later he confessed that he was not happy with the way people ‘speak negatively against Muslims’. He added that he was angry about the CAA-NRC laws and hijab controversy in Karnataka. However, his family and other terror apologists also portrayed that he was ‘mentally unstable’.

Secular-Liberal gang – defending the indefensible

Munir Abbasi, Murtaza’s father gave a lame excuse that his son has a medical history of mental illness and claimed he was undergoing psychiatric treatment for many years. He further claimed that Murtaza has had a mental disorder since his birth(!) and he used to threaten to kill himself quite often. As expected, our secular-liberal gang jumped to amplify this defense of Murtaza and started giving illogical and absurd excuses to protect him.

Actually, this ‘mentally ill’ excuse seems to be a tried-and-tested technique used by terror apologists and left-liberals to try and cover up Islamist terrorist acts all over the world-

Samajwadi Party chief and ex-UP CM Akhilesh Yadav defended Murtaza by trotting out the same excuse given by Abbasi about his son being ‘mentally unstable’ and undergoing treatment. “His father said he has a psychiatric problem, dealing with the bipolar issue, I feel we need to pay heed to that as well (for probe)…BJP is a party that exaggerates”, said Yadav.

Several media channels and YouTube journalists are also putting emotional stories to defend Murtaza and trying to set the narrative that he is an innocent person, who has some mental disorder and he took this step inadvertently.

Here are some facts – Murtaza hails from a wealthy and well-qualified family of professionals. His father is a renowned lawyer, his uncle a neurosurgeon, his grandfather was a collector and his great grandfather was a district judge. His brother is a doctor in Gorakhpur. Murtaza was giving job interviews to various MNCs as he was planning to migrate to Canada. Can a mentally disturbed person do that?

Murtaza – A hardcore Islamist who was planning something nefarious for quite some time

As per reports, the central investigating agencies shared a list of 16 people with UP-ATS, who were plotting a lone-wolf attack on Gorakhnath Temple, and Murtaza’s name was on the list. Two ATS officers had visited his place, but by then, he had slipped away and exeucted the attack in haste.

ADG, law and order, Prashant Kumar confirmed that Murtaza is “highly radicalized” and would often consume ISIS-affiliated literature online. He went to Saudi Arabia in 2016 and moved ahead on the path of radicalization ever since then. He made multiple attempts to go to Syria and join ISIS but somehow failed.

In a shocking revelation, it is also found that he also sent lakhs of rupees to bank accounts linked to ISIS. The investigating agencies are looking into his various bank accounts to find his financial dealings and track the money trail of his transfers to the dreaded terrorist organization.

Due to his exposure to radical ideology on top of the religious education he would have received since childhood, he transformed into a hard-core jihadi. He joined various madrasas located on the Nepal border and used to frequently visit them to hear taqreer of Maulanas and Maulvis. He decided to become a Mujahid (fighter in the cause of Islam) as he felt that the only way to follow the path of Allah is to eliminate the infidels (Kafirs).

Murtaza used to watch videos of Islamic terrorists, fundamentalists, and radical Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and also started following them. Meanwhile, listening to the arguments, he came in contact with terrorist organizations like ISIS and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that derives its name from the Islamic prophecy of Ghazwa-e-Hind, the ultimate conquest of Bharat by Muslims before the end times. He also started traveling across various cities like Mumbai, Jamnagar, Nepal, and Coimbatore to meet people associated with these orgs.

Murtaza’s ex-wife Shadima also contradicts this theory of’ mental disorder’, and stated that he had no such issues. The medical officials at Gorakhpur District Hospital have also declared that Murtaza is not mentally unwell.

So while Islamic radicalization definitely produces unwanted results for society at large and can be viewed as cultist brainwashing, it doesn’t qualify as a medical disorder and such attempts to save this terrorist from the consequences of his actions must be dismissed with contempt they deserve. Unfortunately, the tribe of such radicals is only growing all over the world.

Defending a criminal like Murtaza will have dire consequences

The people, media personalities, and politicians who are defending Murtaza by saying that he is ‘mentally disturbed’ are setting an extremely horrendous precedence. If such evil acts are ignored or rationalized, then we will all face dire consequences. This will give leverage to every radical or terrorist to defend himself by saying that he is ‘mentally disturbed’ and does not know what he has done.

Do you think, a young man, who got a chemical engineering degree from a prestigious institution like IIT, would go to a temple like this and commit such an act out of nowhere? The answer lies in Islamic radicalization. It doesn’t matter if they are well-off and educated, the moment they come under the influence of radical Islam, many Muslim youth start behaving like terrorists who are willing to do anything to meet their goal of bringing the entire world under Islam.

Government must take strict action and ensure such elements are kept behind bars for a long time, at the very least. At the same time, it must ensure that judiciary does not fall for some emotional sob story to go easy on such dangerous elements. Government must also keep a close eye on the people who are defending Murtaza, as these are the very people who help nurture Islamic fundamentalism and supremacism in our country.