Bangalore: The Bangalore police on Friday began an independent probe into the background of UK terror suspects Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed and brought the family under surveillance. The two brothers have been detained in UK in connection with last week’s failed terror attacks in Glasgow Airport in Scotland.
Kafeel - the elder brother of Sabeel Ahmed - was driving the flaming jeep, which crashed into Glasgow Airport. Kafeel is now in hospital with 90 per cent burns. Kafeel and Sabeel are also cousins of Dr Mohammmed Haneef, 27, who was detained at Brisbane Airport under anti-terrorism laws on Monday as he tried to leave the country.
While Sabeel and Haneef are doctors, Kafeel is an engineer.
DCP (crime) of Bangalore police, on Friday, visited the residence of the two brothers. Kafeel and Sabeel’s parents had called in two lawyers earlier in the day and sought advice.
Bangalore Police Commissioner N Achut Rao says neither British nor Australian police have approached them for help in the probe and whatever investigation is being done in Bangalore is on their own.
However, senior city police officials believe it is only a matter of time before either or both countries make a request for information from the city police on the three suspects.
Sources in Bangalore police told CNN-IBN that both Sabeel and Kafeel were fundamentalists and used to organise radical meetings. "The families of the two suspects lived in Jordan and Afghanistan earlier. They made many calls to the Middle East," police sources claim.
Police also questioned the family of Mohammmed Haneef, for two hours on Friday in connection with last week’s failed terror attacks in UK. Haneef and Sabeel went to the same medical college and stayed together in the UK.
The questioning was done by the Joint Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioner of Bangalore Police. Haneef is not so far directly linked to the case, but he is the only one in detention.
Background of the brothers
Police in Bangalore say Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed had joined the Tabligi Jamaat missionary sect.
Police are trying to ascertain whether the three were involved with any terror groups when they were in Bangalore or got into the act after going abroad.
What is a matter of concern to city police in Bangalore, say senior officials who did not want to be named, is the report that Kafeel and Sabeel had joined a missionary sect, Tabligi Jamaat, and had differences with the local mosque authorities on the way prayers and preaching were conducted there.
The two brothers stayed with their parents, both retired doctors, at Banashankari, a middle class locality in Bangalore.
Samiullah, secretary at the Jamia Hazrat Tipu Masjid at Banashankari, told reporters on Thursday evening, that the brothers "used to visit the mosque as children but after they joined the Tabligi Jammat, they became different".
Samiullah said: "As Indians we follow the Indian form of preaching and cannot accept any other form."
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City police said they will pursue this lead to see what the two brothers were up to before going abroad.
Police here paid their first visit to the Banashankari residence of the Ahmeds late on Thursday evening to seek more information from the family on the activities of their sons.
A team of police personnel, including a policewoman, led by Deputy Commissioner S R Ravikante Gowda spent nearly two hours at the house. Gowda declined to give any details of the information his team had gathered.
There is despair in the Ahmed house, with father Maqbool Ahmed, mother Zakhia Ahmed and sister Sadia Kauser losing hope of Sabeel's early release.
Zakhia Ahmed had been insisting for the last two days that the driver of the jeep driven to Glasgow airport was not her son Kafeel Ahmed. But with more evidence pouring in to establish that it was indeed him, she said she can only pray to the Almighty.
Maqbool Ahmed had recently suffered from a heart ailment and hence it was mostly Zakhia who had been interacting with the media.
The mood was no better among the family members of Mohammad Haneef as his detention with police in Australia has now been extended till Monday.
Meanwhile, the Bangalore police have sent teams to Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kerala and more arrests could be made shortly.
Investigations in Australia
The Australian Police have expanded their investigations into last week's failed UK terror threats including the unexploded car bombs in London and an attack on the Glasgow airport.
The police have questioned four doctors believed to be of Indian nationality and seized a number of computers and phones from hospitals.
Two hospitals - one in Perth and the other in the mining town of Kalgoorlie were searched on Friday.
Authorities say computers, files and thousands of pages of documents have been seized and sent for forensic examination.
The Federal police commissioner confirms the computers could have been used at some point by Mohammad Haneef.
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“As part of the ongoing investigation, we have now, with the West Australia police executed warrants in Kalgoorlie, the hospital and also the Royal Perth Hospital a total of four search warrants have been executed in Western Australia, today we have committed more resources to investigation,” says Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty.
As its clear it’s an international and complex investigation with a number of people being interviewed, but the Australian Police has cautioned that it doesn’t mean they all are suspects.
“What we are trying to do is to establish the people who are part of this group and what their role in the group is, there is nothing to suggest those who have been spoken to in Australia unnecessarily guilty of an offense but we are trying to establish what the linkages are and whether there is any criminal aspect to those linkages,” says Keelty.
Investigations in UK
Investigators in the UK are also trying to decipher a conversation Kafeel had with his family before he left for the UK.
He had apparently told his mother and sister, "I am involved in a large scale confidential project on global warming. The project has to be started in the UK. During the project work in the UK, I will not be available by any means- phone or Internet- for a week."
He reiterated this when he called up home from Iceland on June 30.
Kafeel had also claimed that the work on his project would begin in the UK.
He also told his family that an earlier presentation had failed and asked them to pray for him.
Investigators are trying to decipher the meaning of these words. The suspect by 'confidential project', may have been referring to the terror plot. And 'failed presentation' could be interpreted to mean a foiled attack, say sources.
On Friday, Kafeel was transferred from Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley to a special burns unit at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He is under 'armed guard' and his condition is still critical. So one may not really know what Kaffeel was up to with doctors saying his is unlikely to survive the burn injuries.
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