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.

Police also hope to find records of e-mail communications and details of Internet interactions involving the computer used by Kafeel.

Meanwhile, the police have collected religious CDs from the family home. “It is still too early to talk about the contents of the hard disk and the CDs. They have to be studied carefully,” a senior police officer said.

The police are also looking at financial details, records of purchase and sales of vehicles, passports and licences of the family. The police believe that Kafeel may have had more than one passport under different names. They are also looking for people who participated in the 2006 Chechnya meeting.

He knew jet bomb plotter: UK report

LONDON: Kafeel Ahmed knew one of Al Qaeda’s most high-profile bomb makers in Europe who was caught plotting to blow up passenger jets four years ago, according to The Observer. The report says Ahmed met convicted terrorist Abbas Boutrab in Belfast while studying for a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering at Queen’s University between 2001 and 2004. Boutrab was arrested in Belfast in 2003 and convicted two years later for downloading information on how to blow up an airliner.