By IANS
Bangalore : Documents and CDs containing jihadi propaganda material have been seized from the Bangalore home of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, suspects in the failed British terror plot, city police sources said Sunday.
The seizures took place during interrogation of the brother's doctor parents Maqbool Ahmed and Zakhia Ahmed, who live in the middle-class locality of Banashankari here, and sister Sadia Kauser, who is studying medicine in Kolar, about 60 km from here, on Thursday and Friday, they said.
From the seizure, it seem the brothers had keen interest in jihadi literature and propaganda and now the probe is on to find out if they had indulged in pro-jihadi activities before they left for the UK or whenever they visited here on holidays, they added.
Police are not willing to say anything officially on what all they have taken into possession. "We neither deny nor confirm the reports," said an official when asked about the seizure of jihadi material.
The sources said going by the parents' reaction to the seizure, they were apparently not aware of the material. But they could be questioned again by the investigation team that was led by city Deputy Commissioner of Police S.R. Ravikante Gowda and included a woman police personnel.
Police were also mum on reports that they were specifically looking for 12 people who could have formed a 'cell' along with Kafeel, a mechanical engineer, and Sabeel, a medical doctor.
Kafeel, who mounting evidence show was the man who drove the blazing jeep into Glasgow airport on June 30 and suffered 90 percent burns in the process, is now battling for life in a British hospital, while Sabeel is under detention in Liverpool.
City Police Commissioner N. Achuta Rao told reporters that investigations were still on and no conclusive evidence on any of the reports could be drawn for now.
However, after denying all these days that Maqbool and Zakhia had told them that the man who drove the jeep could be their son, a senior police official told a TV channel Saturday that the parents had indeed informed them that the man appeared to be their son.
Meanwhile, repercussions of the two brothers' detention in Britain were also being felt in a small village about 200 km from Bangalore.
The village, Nagenahalli in Belur sub-district of Hassan district, is where Maqbool Ahmed was born. He owns a five-acre coffee plantation there and for long it has been managed by his cousin, Sagir Ahmed.
On Saturday, police visited the house where Maqbool lived before he left the place some 35 years back and talked to his relatives still around there. Except for Sagir, others reportedly told police that they were not been in touch with Maqbool for a long time now.
Another area in Karnataka police teams have visited is Davanagere, around 200 kms form here. Kafeel studied mechanical engineering at a college there. Police have located the house where he stayed as a tenant for four years till he completed the course in 2000. Police, however, could not talk to the owner as he was in Bangalore to attend a family function.
Police are also going through the records that Kafeel had submitted to the Davanagere college as there were several discrepancies in them, the sources said.
For example, he had written 'Hindu' in the column for religion. Also, some mark sheets had neither his signature nor those of the authorities concerned.
As a student, Kafeel was said to be studious but a loner and did not mix with his other students easily. There was no adverse report regarding his conduct during his student days, the sources said.