World | Updated Jul 06, 2007 at 10:33am IST

Man who drove burning jeep in Glasgow an Indian

Bangalore/London/New Delhi: Regular, hardworking, and polite - that's how both Mohd Haneef and Sabeel Ahmed - the doctors arrested for the failed UK terror plot – are described by former colleagues and acquaintances in UK.

But then how did they get involved in a terror plot? Were they leading secret, dual lives or were simply present at the wrong place at the wrong time?

While the initial phase of the investigation - including a manhunt spanning four nations - is now over, many more difficult aspects remain.

The man currently in a UK hospital with severe burns, alleged to be one of the Glasgow bombers has been identified as Sabeel's brother Kafeel - another Indian.

While this news had been doing the rounds in some sections of the UK media, Bangalore police too confirmed it late on Thursday night.

Also, Sabeel’s profile on social-networking site Orkut has also given the investigators some important clues.

Scraps (messages) on his profile indicate he wanted to marry soon. After his alleged involvement came to light, there has also been a deluge of hate messages.

The Indian doctor trail

Meanwhile, the “Indian doctor” trail - stretching from London to Glasgow to Brisbane to Bangalore - is getting more complex.

In the latest development, Haneef's wife Firdous Ashriya denied on Thursday that he was fleeing Australia. “We planned together. That’s why he got a one-way ticket, otherwise I and my baby would have had to travel separately. We planned to go back together,” she said.

But for the Australian police, that one-way ticket was a reason good enough to detain and question him for three days.

Haneef has told Indian High Commission officials that he is innocent but he also told them that he personally knew some of the suspected plotters.

That was probably why Australian police have now got another four days to question him. Another damaging revelation that came from his family was that suspect Sabeel Ahmed, the doctor detained in Liverpool last weekend, was Haneef's second cousin.

Those who know the brothers are convinced they're innocent. Haneef's wife says the SIM card, another link between Haneef and the terror plots, was given by Haneef himself to Sabeel just before he left UK for Australia and that too because the card had credit left on it.

And while Sabeel's landlord in Liverpool says the two were apolitical and only focused on their careers, recent hate messages on Sabeel’s Orkut profile show that in the eyes of some, Sabeel is already a condemned man.

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