The Hindu : Front Page : Glasgow terror investigation leads to Karnataka

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Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
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Glasgow terror investigation leads to Karnataka

Praveen Swami and K.V. Subramanya

First known instance of Indian nationals’ participation

NEW DELHI/ BANGALORE: Investigators believe that three Karnataka residents were core members of the terrorist cell thought to have carried out a near-successful car-bomb attack on Glasgow airport — the first known instance of Indian nationals having participated in an al-Qaeda linked act of terrorism.

Police in Australia arrested Mohammad Haneef, who investigators believe played a central role in planning the Glasgow strike, as he attempted to board a flight to Bangalore via Kuala Lumpur. Dr. Hanif had worked in the United Kingdom last year, when he accepted a position at Brisbane’s Gold Coast Hospital and travelled to Australia on a skilled-worker visa issued by the Queensland Health Department.

Police in Bangalore are also investigating two other Karnataka residents who directly participated in the Glasgow strike. An engineering student who was working towards a doctorate in the United Kingdom has been established to have been the driver of the fuel canister-laden jeep used to execute the attack. A Liverpool-based doctor of Karnataka origin who was in the jeep has also been held by police in the United Kingdom.

Authorities in the United Kingdom are thought to have begun hunting for the Karnataka jihad cell soon after Friday’s abortive car-bombing in London. Hours before the Glasgow attack, police raided a home in Houston, four miles west of the airport, in search of two south Asian men.

One of the two men had told neighbours he was a doctor — and is now thought to be the Karnataka doctor who participated in the Glasgow strike.

According to a highly placed police source, possible contacts between the three men and Islamist groups in Karnataka are being investigated, and further arrests are likely. While police and intelligence officials refused to comment on-record about the details of the investigation, they said that details of phone calls made between Bangalore and the United Kingdom in June had provided significant leads.

Little is known about the three men, and none was believed by Indian intelligence to have had past associations with Islamist terror groups. Dr. Haneef’s wife, Firdaus Haneef, gave birth to a baby three months ago and is currently living with her parents in Bangalore’s BTM Layout. Dr. Haneef visited Bangalore recently to meet his wife and his new-born baby, the sources said.

The son of a schoolteacher from Moodigere in Chikmagalur district, Dr. Haneef had studied at the Rajiv Gandhi Health University’s B.R. Ambedkar Medical College in Bangalore during 1997-2002. A senior faculty member of the college told The Hindu that Haneef completed his internship in 2003. “He was polite and quiet and attended classes regularly, but he kept himself away from extra-curricular activities,” the professor said.

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