A widespread investigation to understand the links and connections of Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed, the brothers allegedly at the heart of the UK terror plot, and their families, is being undertaken by the Bangalore police, primarily using cyber and mobile phone forensics.

Basic analysis of the mobile phone records for a number believed to have been largely used by Kafeel Ahmed — the SIM card is registered in father Maqbool Ahmed’s name — during his stay in India between December 2005 and April 2007, has shown frequent communication with countries including UK, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Malta.

This phone number was incidentally provided by Kafeel Ahmed as the contact for a meeting organised in Bangalore on February 19, 2006 to mark World Chechnya Day — an expression of solidarity with the Muslim people of Chechnya.

Sources said the phone number was in use from January 2006 till January 2007 before it was discarded.

As part of their investigation, the Bangalore police are questioning local residents whose numbers figured frequently on the call list for the SIM.

The police have obtained handsets used by Kafeel and Sabeel’s family members to look at the phone memory for the contents of SMS messages. Sources said as many as 800 messages had been retrieved from a handset used by Kafeel’s mother Zakia, most being from relatives.

The police have also begun looking at the hard disk of a computer used mostly by Kafeel during his stay in India. The hard disk, containing about 15,000 files, will be analysed by cyber experts.

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