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.

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