Suspected al Qaeda terrorist had links with Glasgow attack terrorist: Police

BHUBANESWAR: The suspected al Qaeda terrorist arrested from Cuttack, had links with a terrorist involved in the attack on Glasgow International Airport in 2007, Odisha police said today.

Md Abdur Rahman (37), the suspected terrorist of al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), was arrested from Paschimakachha village in Jagatpur area of Cuttack district early yesterday by Delhi police jointly with Odisha police.

"The Delhi police, during interrogation has come to know about the link of Rahman with Kafeel, a Bengaluru-based youth, who succumbed to burns in a failed attempt to ram an explosive-laden jeep into the Glasgow International Airport in Scotland in 2007," R P Sharma, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Commissioner of Police told reporters here.

Rahman, he said, used to spend most of his time outside Odisha and came under the police scanner after Mohammand Asif, one of the founder members of AQIS, revealed his name.

Though Rahman has no criminal record and runs a madrasa at Tangi near Cuttack, the preliminary verification has revealed that he was involved in an incident at Sahi Masjid inside the Killa Fort in Cuttack in February, 2011.

"Police had arrested him and framed a charge-sheet. The case is now sub judice," the police commissioner said.

Rahman had a dispute with the local people near Killa Fort over establishment of a madrasa in Cuttack. He, however, shifted the plan to set up a madrasa in Tangi area after failing to get place in Cuttack city, sources said.

The Commissionerate Police are presently verifying the madrasa where around 80 children in the age group of 10-15 years, mostly from Jharkhand, are studying.

Besides, police have been trying to collect information about Rahman's other close associates and their modus operandi in Cuttack and other districts in the state, Sharma said.

Three associates of Rahman, including a doctor have been picked up for for interrogation. However, no one was so far arrested, the police said.

The madrasa is run privately and the government has asked the district education officer (DEO) to verify whether it has proper documents, Odisha School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said.

"The DEO will submit an inquiry report. If any illegality is found, the madrasa will be shut down," Mishra said.