Shooter livestream ghastly act, arrested; 9 Indians missing; 1 injured

Mass shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers killed 49 people in New Zealand as authorities charged one person, detained three others and defused explosive devices in what appeared to be a carefully planned racist terror attack. The shooter has been taken into custody.

The deadliest attack occurred at Masjid Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch about 1.45 pm, killing 30 people there. There was a second shooting at the Linwood Masjid Mosque that killed at least 10 people.

Unconfirmed reports claimed that nine Indian nationals were missing after the shootings. An Indian-origin man was injured in the Christchurch terror attacks, his relatives residing in Hyderabad said on Friday. Khursheed Jahangir, brother of Ahmed Iqbal Jahangir, said his brother was injured during the attack and is currently undergoing treatment at a local hospital in Christchurch.

However, India’s High Commission in New Zealand is ascertaining the reports. “Our (Indian High Commission) mission is in touch with local authorities to ascertain more details. It is a sensitive matter and therefore we can't give confirmed numbers/names till we are absolutely certain,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi.

The mosque shooter has been identified as a 28-year-old Australian white nationalist who hates immigrants. He was set off by attacks in Europe that were perpetrated by Muslims.

The gunman — whose name was not immediately released by police — left behind a 74-page document posted on social media under the name Brenton Tarrant in which he said he hoped to survive the attack to better spread his ideas in the media.

And though he portrayed himself in his writings as quiet and introverted, he livestreamed his assault on the worshippers at Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern alluded to anti-immigrant sentiment as the possible motive, saying that while many people affected by the shootings may be migrants or refugees “they have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home”. “It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack,” she said.

The video livestreamed by the shooter shows the attack in horrifying detail. The gunman spends more than two minutes inside the mosque spraying terrified worshippers with bullets again and again, sometimes re-firing at people he has already cut down.

He then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the sidewalk. Children’s screams can be heard as he returns to his car to get another rifle.

The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground. After walking back outside and shooting a woman there, he gets back in his car, where the song “Fire” by English rock band “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” can be heard blasting from the speakers.