By IANS
London/Sydney : An Indian doctor arrested in Liverpool for last week's failed terror attacks in Britain was identified as Sabeel Ahmed while authorities in Australia Wednesday extended the detention of a second Indian medico suspect and freed yet another.
The police response to the June 29- and 30-terror attacks in London and Glasgow rapidly gathered momentum as more details emerged on what could be the first major incident involving Indians in organised global terrorism.
Ahmed and the doctor detained in Australia, Mohammad Haneef, are among eight suspects – seven men and a woman – being held in Britain and Australia over three failed car bombings. While a flaming jeep was rammed through the main entrance of Glasgow airport Saturday, two Mercedes car bombs failed in London a day earlier.
All three doctors appear to have an India and Liverpool connection. The third Indian, identified as Mohammad Asif Ali was released after being questioned. Haneef and Ali also worked in Liverpool before moving to Australia.
While British police said the "active phase of arrest" had been completed, anxious family members of both the Indians under detention – Ahmed and Haneef – said they were still to hear from two.
However, the Indian consulate in Queensland said it was in contact with Haneef.
Honorary Consul in Brisbane, Prof. Sarvadaman Singh, told IANS, "We received a call from him yesterday at 11 am, informing us that he had been held on suspicion of terrorism and if we could inform his family. We do not know his address in India, we do not know his passport number, we do not know his date of birth, there are no details to go on. That was the end of it. We are constantly in touch with the police and trying to offer any consular support Dr Haneef may require".
The manager of the Gold Coast apartment complex where Haneef lived told ABC Radio, "There's still washing out on the line, you know on the balcony and dishes around, bread sitting there, stuff like that. It didn't really look like an apartment that someone was heading overseas for a while." He kept his apartment tidy and always paid the rent.
According to local media reports, Haneef had told his Gold Coast Hospital colleagues that he was "in a hurry to get home" for seven to 10 days, despite not having any scheduled holidays on his roster between June 4 and August 10.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has told newspersons that he hoped to be able to charge, release or extradite Haneef by the end of the week. Police are believed to have found correspondence and evidence of telephone communication between Haneef and some of the British suspects.
The involvement of the doctors prompted Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, to promise a review of the way overseas doctors are recruited for the National Health Service. Background checks on skilled migrants will be expanded, Brown said Wednesday.
In both Britain and Australia, the possible involvement of up to eight doctors – members of a respectable and trusted profession – from India, Jordan and Iraq led to mounting concerns about the spread of terror networks but also prompted calls for caution.
Sian Thomas, deputy director of NHS Employers, said she wanted to reassure the public there were "thorough and robust checks" in place before doctors were employed by NHS trusts. The most recent figures show that almost 128,000 of the 277,000 doctors on the General Medical Council register have been trained outside Britain.
Abdula Shehu, member of the Muslim Doctors Association and chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain's health committee, said he was worried about a possible backlash against Muslim doctors.
He told the BBC: "To generalise for an event like this and think that Muslim doctors generally should have a different kind of treatment or perception in a negative way should not be the issue here."
In Australia, the arrest of the 27-year Haneef put the focus on overseas trained doctors and the 457 work visa programme.
Under the programme, skilled migrant workers are allowed temporary entry to Australia to take up specific jobs with sponsor employers who cannot fill the positions locally.
Forty percent of all doctors in Australia were overseas trained and almost 15 percent of overseas trained doctors in Australia are Indians.
Overseas and Australian Medical Graduates Association (OAMGA) president Dr V Nagamma, who migrated to Australia in 1979 from Bangalore, said, "I encourage people to remain open minded on the matter until the investigations are complete. It is disappointing to hear that a medical professional has been implicated in connection to activities that we as a community don't endorse. It would be a knee-jerk reaction by a community at large to draw any conclusion until the jury is out."
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has appealed for calm and defended Queensland's overseas trained doctors, describing them as good people and hard workers in the community.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, Heathrow Airport's Terminal 4 was reopened after a suspect bag sparked a security alert. The British Airports Authority said that the departure lounge was partially evacuated, leaving thousands of people facing delays.
In another development the British government decided to ban two extreme Islamist groups accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in South Asia – the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi.
The development was unconnected with the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, a Home Office statement said.
While the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh is banned in Bangladesh, where it has claimed responsibility for attacks, including a wave of bombings in 2005 that killed at least 30 people, the Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi is reported to be active in tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.