India troubled by links to terror suspects
Friday, 13 July 2007
The Bangalore company that hired one of the Indian suspects in the failed terror attack on Glasgow airport in the UK sought to distance itself from the case on Wednesday, saying it had no record of his movements after he quit in August last year.
The comments by Infotech Enterprises, an outsourcing company, concerned Kafeel Ahmed, who allegedly tried to crash a jeep into the Scottish airport last month in what would be one of the first international terrorist attacks to involve Indian Muslims.
"Like with any other employee we have [had] no interaction whatsoever with Kafeel in the last 12 months since he was relieved," Infotech said, adding he worked as an aeronautical design engineer there for nine months.
The case has prompted concerns in India that global Islamist militant groups are infiltrating the country's professional classes even as India struggles with domestic terrorism. Mumbai last Wednesday marked the first anniversary of train bomb attacks that killed 186 people and were blamed on Pakistani and local Muslim groups.
Mr Ahmed is in a Scottish hospital suffering from burns following the airport attack on June 30, one day after police in London found two unexploded car bombs. His brother, Sabeel Ahmed, a doctor, has been detained as a suspect in Liverpool while a third Indian, Mohamed Haneef, also a doctor, is being held in Australia for questioning. They are among eight people held in relation to the case.
Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, said in the past Indian militants had mainly been drawn from the poorer, uneducated classes and had taken their frustration out on local government targets or become involved in terrorist acts in Kashmir.
The Glasgow incident was rare because of the alleged involvement of a different socioeconomic class of Indian Muslims who identified more closely with the grievances of global Islamic militant movement against the west than with similar causes in their own country.
The comments by Infotech Enterprises, an outsourcing company, concerned Kafeel Ahmed, who allegedly tried to crash a jeep into the Scottish airport last month in what would be one of the first international terrorist attacks to involve Indian Muslims.
"Like with any other employee we have [had] no interaction whatsoever with Kafeel in the last 12 months since he was relieved," Infotech said, adding he worked as an aeronautical design engineer there for nine months.
The case has prompted concerns in India that global Islamist militant groups are infiltrating the country's professional classes even as India struggles with domestic terrorism. Mumbai last Wednesday marked the first anniversary of train bomb attacks that killed 186 people and were blamed on Pakistani and local Muslim groups.
Mr Ahmed is in a Scottish hospital suffering from burns following the airport attack on June 30, one day after police in London found two unexploded car bombs. His brother, Sabeel Ahmed, a doctor, has been detained as a suspect in Liverpool while a third Indian, Mohamed Haneef, also a doctor, is being held in Australia for questioning. They are among eight people held in relation to the case.
Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, said in the past Indian militants had mainly been drawn from the poorer, uneducated classes and had taken their frustration out on local government targets or become involved in terrorist acts in Kashmir.
The Glasgow incident was rare because of the alleged involvement of a different socioeconomic class of Indian Muslims who identified more closely with the grievances of global Islamic militant movement against the west than with similar causes in their own country.