Date:08/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/08/stories/2007070854100100.htm

Front Page

DNA test confirms Kafeel drove Glasgow jeep

K.V. Subramanya

BANGALORE: DNA testing by the U.K. authorities has confirmed that the man who drove the flaming jeep into the Glasgow Airport terminal on June 30 was indeed Kafeel Ahmed from Bangalore, the elder brother of Sabeel Ahmed who has also been detained in Liverpool for his suspected role in the attack.

Highly placed sources in the police here told The Hindu on Saturday that the DNA samples of Kafeel, who has suffered serious burns, had matched that of Sabeel.

Central intelligence agencies on Friday communicated this information to the Bangalore police, who are investigating the Karnataka angle to the London-Glasgow terror plot, the sources said.

According to information available with the police here, Kafeel had left his bag and baggage at Sabeel’s house a few days before the attack, and this apparently led to the latter’s detention.

Detention in Bangalore

The Bangalore police have detained for interrogation a “well educated” local youth with whom the two brothers had close contacts. Kafeel and Sabeel had met the youth several times during their recent visit to Bangalore, the sources said. fficials of the Cyber Crime Police Station were deciphering information from the hard disk of a computer that was seized from Kafeel’s house. Kafeel had sent several e-mails from the computer during their stay here.

On suspicion that Kafeel had pumped in huge sums from the U.K. to his family here, the police are probing the financial details of his parents, Dr. Zakia Ahmed and Dr. Maqbool Ahmed, who had worked in West Asia for nearly 15 years. The police are making similar enquiries in regard to the family of another Bangalore doctor, Mohammed Haneef, who has been detained in Brisbane, the sources said.

After their initial schooling in West Asia, the two siblings came to Bangalore in the early 1990s for further education. According to Bangalore Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao, the investigations so far have indicated that they did not have any contacts with terrorist or fundamentalist groups in Karnataka.