PM offers help in Britain bomb probe

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that he had offered help in the probe into a British car bomb plot but urged people not to jump to conclusions over the nationalities of the suspects.   

Singh said he had telephoned Gordon Brown on Wednesday to promise India's help in tracking down suspects linked to failed car bombings in London and an attempted attack on Glasgow airport last Friday and Saturday. 

"We offered them all possible help in dealing with this, but I think labelling Indians as terrorists, Pakistanis as terrorists... I think, these labels are best avoided," he said. "As a Sikh, I understand the trauma," the prime minister said, referring to the thousands of deaths that occured during the armed Sikh separatists campaign- the Khalistani movement that erupted in Punjab in 1982.     

 "Terrorists are terrorists and they have no particular community, and I think they have to be dealt with as such rather than fix labels (that) they are Indians, Pakistanis, Muslim and non-Muslims," he said.    

The PM said both India and Britain, which have an extradition treaty, should look for "solutions" to prevent such attacks. "We have to look for solutions because if a particular community is targeted then it will create a new set of grievances. It won't help us in understanding the situation or dealing with it," Singh warned.   

Sources in the Indian foreign ministry said that Delhi had separately conveyed Singh's argument through diplomatic channels to Australia and Britain, where some 27,000 Indians or people of Indian origin are employed in the medical sector.   

Details of eight men detained over the failed attacks in London and Glasgow have now emerged. Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi, and fellow doctor Khalim Ahmed drove the car into the side of the main terminal of Glasgow airport on Saturday. Ahmed is in critical condition in hospital after suffering severe burns.  

The Daily Telegraph broadsheet said three of the eight suspects, including Haneef, are members of the same family from Bangalore, while the families of two others were old friends in the Middle East.  A family source in Bangalore confirmed that a distant cousin of Haneef is one of the suspects, but gave no further details.