By IANS
London/Sydney : Two Indian doctors – one from Liverpool and another from Brisbane, Australia – are reported to be among the eight people arrested in connection with the attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
As ongoing investigations continue in the incidents, it is fast emerging that the suspects were doctors with "brilliant" academic achievements and references who worked in the National Health Service (NHS) as a cover for their designs.
The two Indian doctors have not been named so far. The Indian arrested in Brisbane was reported to be on his way to India via Kuala Lumpur on a one-way ticket when he was arrested.
The other Indian doctor was arrested in Liverpool, but reports say that his arrest may have been a case of mistaken identity.
The Muslim News, an online news outlet, reported that the doctor was a postgraduate trainee from Bangalore, and may have been confused with another associate from Halton Hospital, Cheshire, who moved to Australia a year ago.
"I believe it may be a case of mistaken identity," one of his colleagues told The Muslim News, and added that he was convinced that his associate was at least "99 per cent innocent."
The colleague said the suspect, who began work at the hospital just under a year ago, was well known in the community as he had worked with him in various hospital and community projects.
He believed he may have been detained because he had mobile chip of the other doctor and was using his internet account after he went to Australia. The doctor, which reports say was 26, was understood to have been detained when he was travelling home from Penny Lane Mosque in Liverpool late on Saturday night.
The arrested Indian doctor's old and current addresses were raided by the police, The Muslim News reported.
The Indian doctor arrested in Brisbane reportedly worked as a medical registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital in eastern Queensland state. The 27-year-old doctor arrested Monday was hired in September 2006 after he answered an advertisement in the British Medical Journal. He was recruited from Liverpool but completed his medical internship in India.
"A man has been taken into custody and questioning is under way.
The person is an Indian national who came to Australia sponsored by the Queensland health department under a 457 work visa," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the media Tuesday.
He was arrested Monday night at Brisbane airport while trying to leave the country.
Earlier, the federal police commissioner Mick Keelty said the Indian man, identified by British police with the initial H, was not on any Australian watch list.
"The events underline the very close co-operation that exists between the Australian security authorities and the British security authorities, and there has also been very close collaboration between the Australian federal police and Queensland police," Howard said.
DPA adds: The other doctors arrested are Mohammed al-Asha, 26, a Jordanian neurologist who worked at a hospital in Stoke-on-Trent in central Britain, and Bilal Abdullah, 27, of Iraq, who worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland, not far from the Glasgow Airport targeted Saturday.
The other possible medical connections were two men, aged 28 and 25, who were arrested Monday on the campus of the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It was not clear if they were medical professionals.
Royal Alexandra Hospital was also the scene of two controlled explosions by police since Sunday to defuse suspicious vehicles and objects. Police cordoned off doctors' living quarters there on Monday.
Abdullah was one of two men who survived after trying to drive a blazing Jeep into Glasgow airport. Police, using evidence found in two unexploded Mercedes car bombs in London on Friday, have said the London and Glasgow plots were linked.
The other man in the Jeep suffered severe burns.
Al-Asha along with his wife was arrested Saturday during a motorway hunt in Cheshire, northern England, while travelling with their 2-year-old son.