Bombing suspects 'tried to radicalise Bangalore mosque'

Two Indian brothers at the centre of police investigations into the alleged NHS terrorist plot tried to persuade their local Indian mosque to adopt a more "hard line" form of Islam.

Sabeel and Khafeel Ahmed - one being questioned by police, the other under police guard in hospital where he is suffering from 90 per cent burns - challenged officials, but their requests were rejected and the brothers were ultimately forced to leave the mosque.

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"Five or six years ago there was a problem with the kids. They wanted us to change the way we prayed," said Samiullah, the secretary of an Islamic trust which includes the Masjid-e-Kudadad, opposite the Ahmed's family home in Bangalore. "They were trying to change people into being more hard line. There was a fight. There was a problem. It did not go down very well."

He said the brothers had criticised the mosque's members for attending dargahs - shrines sacred to both Muslims and Hindus. Samiullah, who has only one name, said the brothers sought to introduce religious ideas from Saudi Arabia. Eventually, he said, the locals threatened to break the brothers' arms and legsand told them to stay away from the mosque. Their father continued to attend.

The details about the brothers' actions as young adults emerged against a backdrop of disbelief and anguish that has rocked the country's booming technology capital as the nation confronts the possibility that, for the first time, Indian Muslims may have been involved in an international terror plot.

But friends and relatives of the brothers, along with those of a third Indian - Mohammed Haneef, detained in connection with the plot by police in Australia - have insisted the men are entirely innocent and have been wrongly detained. None of the men has been charged.

Yesterday the brothers' parents refused to emerge from the family home, the marble gatepost of which was inscribed with the names of their three children. But previously their mother, Dr Zakia Ahmed - questioned before Khafeel's identity had emerged - insisted that Sabeel was not involved in any terror plot. "He was not a fundamentalist, but strongly believed in religion and God," she told the Indian Express. "We had funded his studies in the UK and he was practising in a hospital in the UK."

A friend of Sabeel, Apsar Pasha, who works in a nearby butcher's shop, said they and other friends would often meet in the store to talk. "He was very well educated. He wanted to tell people, don't [be disrespectful] to people. Don't smoke, don't drink too much tea or coffee. He wanted them not to indulge in bad habits," he said.

Sabeel and Mr Haneef had been close friends - some reports suggest they were second cousins - and had studied together at the city's BR Ambedkar Medical College. The vice-principal, Dr Stanley John, said that Mr Haneef had been an exceptional student, while Sabeel was average, but that neither had done anything during their five years of study to suggest that they possessed extreme views. Both spent time working at Halton Hospital in Cheshire in 2005.

"When they are here, they have us to guide them, and their parents at home. Maybe when they leave they can get entangled with an organisation. They might brainwash them," said Mr John.

In the college's graduation book, Sabeel, known to be sociable and a keen footballer, wrote of his time at the medical school: "Interesting time with a variety of people. Few very memorable ones. But five years are enough!!!". Mr Haneef, said to be much quieter, wrote simply: "Gave me professionalism."

At Mr Haneef's home on the opposite side of Bangalore, his mother and sister were said to be too upset to speak. Just two weeks ago, Mr Haneef's wife gave birth to a daughter, and the family said that he was trying to return from Australia - where he had been working as a doctor - to see his newborn child. A cousin, who gave his name as Sharif, said: "The family is very shocked by this. They are depressed. The mother is very upset."