Chennai: Brenton Tarrant, the Australian-born attacker who killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, travelled extensively around the world, including India where he spent nearly three months, before moving to New Zealand to carry out the country’s worst massacre in 2019, according to a detailed report into the shootings released on Tuesday.
Five Indians were among those killed in the terror attack on 15 March last year that also left dozens of others wounded and had shaken New Zealand, regarded as one of the most peaceful countries in the world.
The 792-page Royal Commission of Inquiry report notes that after leaving school, the 30-year-old attacker worked as a personal trainer at a local gym until 2012 when he suffered an injury.
“He never again worked in paid employment. Instead, he lived off the money that he had received from his father and income from investments made with it With the money from his father, the individual travelled extensively. First, in 2013, he explored New Zealand and Australia and then between 2014 and 2017 he travelled extensively around the world,” it said.
“The longest visit the individual made to any one country was to India where he stayed between 21 November, 2015, and 18 February, 2016. The countries that he visited for periods of about a month or more included China, Japan, Russia, South Korea among others,” said the report that took about 18 months to compile.
The inquiry report did not provide details of what Tarrant was doing in India during his nearly three-month stay in India.