Indian connections tied to London bomb plot

London, Aug 14: Kashmir appeared to be foremost in the minds of the alleged plotters of the unsuccessful bid to blow up the US-bound flights in Britain with liquid explosives, media reports said.

The two brothers reportedly at the centre of the investigation, Rashid and Tayib Rauf, from Birmingham, are both British citizens of Kashmiri (Mirpuri) origin, according to The Independent.

Rashid Rauf is one of the 17 people being held in Pakistan in connection with the alleged plot. He has been linked to Lashkar.

Not much substantial information has emerged from Pakistan but British Kashmiris had direct contact with the militant Islamic groups in Pakistan, and there was nothing secret about it, the paper added.

After last year's Kashmir earthquake, hundreds of British Kashmiris travelled back to their homeland to help in the relief effort. While there they were in daily contact with the militants because in the early stages it was the militants who ran the relief effort.

The Independent claims to have witnessed volunteers from Birmingham working alongside militants from Lashkar-e-Toiba just north of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir(PoK), where a mountain had collapsed on top of a village and Lashkar was running a makeshift ferry service to evacuate the wounded.

A recent report in Pakistan's Daily Times reported that it was transfers of funds disguised as donations for Kashmir earthquake relief that first alerted intelligence services to the Pakistani side of the suspected plot.

Britain tipped-off Pakistani intelligence about huge sums of money being transferred from a UK-based charity to the private bank accounts of three individuals in Pakistan, marked ''earthquake relief''.

According to the Independent those three men are now under arrest in Pakistan, and Rashid Rauf is believed to be one of them. Reports of Kashmiri involvement in the London plot raises the question of whether any contacts were made at that time. People of Kashmiri origin mostly from Mirpur, are the single largest group among Pakistani immigrants to Britain.

But Pakistan is not saying much about the arrests. Of at least 17 people arrested, only Rashid Rauf has been named. He has been linked, in different reports, to several militant groups: Lashkar-e Toiba, Lashkar-e Jangvhi, Jaish-e Mohammed and al-Qaida but those groups have been known to cooperate with each other.

Not only this, of the 24 people arrested in this regard, the youngest Abdul Muneem Patel of Indian origin is believed to have a Gujarat connection.

Abdul Patel, only 17 is the son of Mohammed Patel, a mechanic, and police are trying to trace his roots in Gujarat.

According to media reports Patel's friends saw him change from a carefree person to a cold and temperamental youth, after his father travelled to Iraq on a Muslim aid mission and apparently never returned home.

Expelled from secondary school for missing classes, Patel began wearing traditional Muslim clothes but had recently switched back to western clothes, his friend said.

Patel married his childhood sweet heart Sofia Kapadia, a few months ago at Casenova Road mosque in Hackney. The couple lived with Abdul's mother Anisa.

Family friend Sara Hikmatulla, 25, said, ''They are just a young couple in love. Abdul is not capable of anything like this.

Sofia's family live around the corner from Abdul's and they fell in love some time ago.'' Ms Anisa was reportedly devastated when police raided her home and arrested Abdul. She has epilepsy and friends fear the stress of having to leave her home and the worry about her son will make it worse. Anisa looks after daughter Zarina, 22, a bio-medical science student, and sons Hifzurrahman, 20, and Usama, 12.

Sofia's father Akil Kapadia was also taken by the police from his home on Alconbury Road. Mr Kapadia, regularly seen driving his motorised wheelchair to the shops, is said to be a well known and respected community figure.

UNI

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