Date:05/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/05/stories/2007080561550400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Kafeel family not going to U.K.

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Family members of Kafeel Ahmed, who died of burns after driving a flaming Jeep into the Glasgow airport in a failed terror plot on June 30, are not going to the U.K., Islamic scholar Umar Sheriff, a close acquaintance of the family, said on Saturday.

Mr. Sheriff, who is associated with the Discover Islam Education Trust, told The Hindu that the Ahmeds had no plans to visit the United Kingdom and dismissed as utterly false agency reports that Kafeel’s mother, Zakia Ahmed, w as flying to London to attend the last rites of her son.

Special prayer

Mr. Sheriff, who held a special prayer meeting at the Banashankari residence of the Ahmeds on Friday evening, reiterated that when the family had not received any official information on Kafeel’s death, there was no question of them going to the U.K. Another close friend of the family confirmed that the Ahmeds were not going to the U.K.

They were still not sure whether the man who died of burns was Kafeel, he said.

When contacted, Commissioner of Police Neelam Achuta Rao said the police had no information, from any source, about the Ahmed family going to the U.K.