The scrap, posted following Dr Sabeel Ahmed’s arrest as one of the medical professionals connected to the failed UK terror plot, presumes guilt. But it also expresses concern that terrorism could replace technology as a pseudonym for Bangalore.

At the B.R. Ambedkar Medical College in east Bangalore, where Dr Sabeel Ahmed and his cousin Dr Mohammed Haneef, detained in Australia in connection with the plot, studied, there is similar exasperation that former students entangled in terrorism have brought the college into disrepute. “It is really shocking. We really don’t know what’s been happening” says college principal Dr B.R. Ramesh.

In the Bangalore home of Sabeel and his brother Kafeel, the man who allegedly drove a jeep into the Glasgow airport, there is disbelief too. Their father, Dr Maqbool Ahmed, a prominent citizen and member of the Jamait-I-Islami who was reportedly jailed during under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act during the Emergency period, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years ago and rarely speaks to outsiders these days.

Their mother, Dr Zakia Ahmed, is more in control but still in shock that it is her family that is under seige. While she still does not believe that Sabeel could be involved in the terror plot, she has told family friends and the police that television images of the burning man at the Glasgow airport resembled Kafeel. “I don’t know how this could have happened. They are very good boys. Someone has misguided him,” she says.

In many ways, these feelings of anguish over seemingly unlikely candidates — two well-educated sons, a reputed private medical college and a modern, cosmopolitan city — being embroiled in terrorism, represent an awakening from a general complacency over terrorism.

The alleged Bangalore links that have emerged in the UK plot, through Sabeel, his 28-year-old engineer brother Kafeel, and their cousin Mohammad Haneef, is the first time the IT city has found mention, more than vaguely, in an international terrorism plot.

In fact, since no locals had until now been linked to terror plots in India or outside, the Karnataka police have had a theory: that terrorist activities cannot flourish in Bangalore. The theory has stood the test of time since there has only been the odd reference to Bangalore in international terrorism investigations.

In investigations of the 9/11 attack in the US, for instance, an unclaimed passport in the name of a man issued in Bangalore reportedly surfaced at one of the attack sites. A local probe, following a reference by intelligence authorities, revealed that the passport was fake, with the person whose identity had been stolen unaware that his passport had surfaced in the US.

The city has been in the news more as a target for terrorism than as a brewer and exporter of it, police say, citing the church blasts of 2000 and the Indian Institute of Science attack on December 28, 2005.

The church blasts case, still under trial, was linked to the Deendar Anjuman group and Pakistan. In the IISc case there have been no arrests so far and the police believe that locals could have only participated peripherally in the attack. The terror radar erected in Karnataka, following the IISc attack, has resulted in the busting of sleeper modules in the state — namely two alleged Pakistani origin operatives in Mysore and a former JKLF activist working out of Bellary district in the state.

The state administration’s belief that terror activities are not likely to significantly touch Karnataka is signified by the fact that there is no dedicated anti-terrorism cell in the state. The state anti-terrorism cell is for all purposes a one-man unit manned by an inspector general of police. An intelligence system geared only to cater to the needs of the political set-up of the day is the sole support base for the state anti-terrorism cell.

The Bangalore City Police are slightly better off with a loosely formed cell comprising largely of officers of the City Crime Branch. Apart from keeping tabs on terrorism the Bangalore anti-terrorism cell also has to frequently double up to investigate burglaries, homicides, narcotics and immoral trafficking.

In sharp contrast to the police, large IT companies in Bangalore have sizeably stepped up their security measures using both technology and human personnel, especially in the aftermath of the IISc attack.