Indian police question family of terrorist plot suspects (Roundup)

Jul 6, 2007, 12:27 GMT

New Delhi - With evidence of the role of three Indians emerging in the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow, police in India's southern city of Bangalore have questioned the family of the suspects, media reports said Friday.

A team from the crime branch of the Bangalore police has been questioning the family of brothers Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed, who are among the eight suspects in the case, since Thursday night, the NDTV network reported.

Indian news outlets reported that Kafeel Ahmed, 27, identified by British investigators as Khalid Ahmed, allegedly carried out both the London and Glasgow attacks along with Bilal Abdullah, an Iraqi.

Kafeel, an aeronautical engineer with a doctorate from Britain, and Abdullah carried out the attack at Glasgow airport. They were also believed to have driven the two Mercedes 'bomb cars' down to Central London last Friday.

Local newspapers described Kafeel as the 'Glasgow bomber,' saying he was suspected of having driven the burning jeep into Glasgow airport. He was admitted to hospital with severe burns.

The reports also said that Kafeel was the brother of Sabeel Ahmed, 26, a doctor arrested in Liverpool, who introduced him to the two other suspects, Mohammed Asha and Abdullah, in Cambridge in 2005.

But the Bangalore police declined to confirm whether Kafeel and Sabeel were related or whether Kafeel was the man who drove the burning jeep into the airport.

'We are carrying out investigations, but nothing more interesting than what has appeared in the media has emerged,' N Achyut Rao, Bangalore police commissioner, told NDTV.

Meanwhile, the Times of India daily reported that Kafeel told his family that he was working on a 'large-scale confidential project.'

'I am involved in a large-scale confidential project. It is about global warming. I cannot reveal the details,' he told his family in Bangalore, before leaving for Britain in May, the newspaper reported.

On June 30, one day after the two car bombs in London were discovered and defused, Ahmed told his mother, Zakia Ahmed, over the telephone that his 'earlier presentation failed' and asked them to pray for him, the report said.

The third Indian in what is suspected to be an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist cell is Mohammed Haneef, a 27-year old doctor arrested by the Australian police in Brisbane for terrorist links.

Haneef, a cousin of the Ahmed brothers, was in close contact with Sabeel, the Times reported.

The families of the Ahmed brothers, as well as Haneef, insist they are innocent and have requested the Indian authorities for help in the matter.

Haneef's wife Firdous was disappointed that Australian authorities had prolonged his detention. 'Even if the authorities hold him for another 15 days, they cannot find anything against him. He is innocent,' she told reporters.

According to investigators, seven of the eight suspects are doctors, and one, the only woman, is a laboratory researcher. All worked in British hospitals for the National Health Service.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on Thursday assured his British counterpart Gordon Brown of 'all possible help' in the investigations.

During a briefing with female journalists in New Delhi, Singh said he was worried about the possible stereotyping of Indians in Britain after the events of last week. Labelling Indians and Pakistanis as terrorists was avoidable, he said.

'We should not fix labels like Muslims or non-Muslims. It won't help us in understanding the situation or dealing with it,' he said.

'A terrorist is a terrorist and he has no religion or community,' he said, adding, 'It is wrong to label any community or country. We have to look for solutions.'