Sabeel Ahmed, doctor. Mufti Abu Basheer, editor and teacher. Abdul Subhan Qureshi, software engineer.

Young, educated and employed, these recent Indian terror suspects have little in common with gangsters Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem or their hitmen who are accused of triggering blasts across Bombay in 1993.

Their alleged involvement sprang not from hardened criminal instincts shaped by early deprivation and outcaste lives, nor from an uneducated mind easily influenced by fanatics who offer a simple solution to the problems of life.

It came from a deep-rooted feeling of persecution and despair that may be spreading across Muslim society, suggest security experts and academics.

If indeed guilty, their decision to give up a settled life for extremism carries shades of the Naxalite attraction that drew dozens of educated youth to armed warfare in the ’60s and ’70s, the experts say.

“Just like one saw students from prestigious colleges like Presidency or St Stephen’s joining the Naxalite movement, these boys are attracted to militancy for ideological reasons rather than personal gain or grievance,” former Intelligence Bureau official Malay Dhar said.

Sabeel had graduated from Bangalore’s B.R. Ambedkar Medical College before taking up a hospital post in Britain, where he was accused of links to the attempted bombing of Glasgow airport last year. His brother Kafeel, a PhD (engineering) student, died after driving a bomb-laden van into the terminal building.

Mufti Abu Basheer, accused in the July 26 Ahmedabad blasts, was editor of a small journal and a madarsa teacher in Hyderabad, police say. Qureshi alias Tauqeer, yet to be traced by the police, allegedly sent the email warnings just ahead of the Ahmedabad bombings and the September 13 Delhi blasts.

“This new trend is a matter of serious concern for the country. Educated youths are being indoctrinated to become fodder for larger political aims of people who themselves remain behind the scenes,” said lyricist Javed Akhtar.

It’s necessary, he said, to identify the reasons — and fast — why “the educated Muslim” may be turning to terrorism.

Growing alienation and a sense of helplessness and desperation spawned by discrimination against the community could be an important reason, Jamia Millia Islamia vice-chancellor Mushirul Hasan suggested.

The university has been at the centre of an emotional debate on India’s battle against terrorism after two of its students — Zia-ur Rahman and Mohammed Shakeel — were arrested for allegedly helping carry out the Delhi blasts.

“No one should take this trend lightly. The more Gujarats you have, the easier it will be for those interested in recruiting educated young Muslims suffering from a sense of helplessness,” Hasan said, referring to the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002.

Earlier this month, Mumbai police arrested three men, all engineers, accused of planting bombs (that didn’t explode) in Surat and helping draft the emails that Qureshi allegedly sent.

Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy, 31, worked with a multinational Internet search provider while Mubin Shaikh was a senior technical adviser in an information technology company. Asif Bashir Shaikh is a mechanical engineer.

Vicious cycle

The trend has led to a vicious cycle, with the arrests and “encounters” like the one in Delhi’s Jamianagar — where two young Muslims were gunned down by the police — deepening the community’s feelings of persecution.

Also, the arrests of educated Muslims for alleged terror links has meant that finding accommodation is today harder for students, at least near Jamia, increasing the feelings of helplessness.

The narrow lanes that snake through the crowded localities that surround the university area have traditionally housed hundreds of students studying at Jamia. But last week, when two students approached Mohammed Riaz, seeking to rent his one-room barsati in Abu Fazl Enclave which stands between Jamia and the Yamuna, the 45-year-old told them he wasn’t interested in renting at present.

“Students had always been welcome here. I have taken in at least 50 students over the best part of 25 years. For landlords, a student is generally considered a safer option as a tenant than any other single man. But after the arrests, it isn’t such an easy decision. I may just be panicking, but I can’t help myself,” Riaz said.

Beyond ‘persecution’

But Hasan warned against dismissing the Muslim hurt simply as a “persecution complex”.

“We need to realise that in our complex society, Muslims see that while the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes have received new opportunities, they have not,” he said.

The Sachar committee report on the status of minorities in India, handed to the government two years ago, showed that Muslims languish below the Other Backward Classes and even the SCs and STs on many socio-economic parameters.

Muslims across India on an average have a literacy rate of 75 per cent, below the 78 per cent for SC/STs. A Muslim child, on an average, spends fewer years in school than an SC or ST child.

India has quotas in educational institutions for SCs, STs and OBCs but not for Muslims.

Global trend

The view of the terrorist as someone grown up in deprivation, with a dysfunctional family, few friends, minimal education and a world view that can be easily moulded by zealots has undergone a change abroad too.

A study of 172 al Qaida militants in 2004 by Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA official, found that most were from middle-class or upper-class families, and were college-educated professionals.

Sageman’s book, Understanding Terrorist Networks, says engineers and doctors are the likeliest among the educated to take to militancy.

“Engineers and physicians are far more active in their everyday lives, trying to do things… than, say, lawyers. You don’t find many lawyers (among militants).”

Osama bin Laden is a civil engineering graduate, his number two Ayman al Zawahiri is a brilliant Egyptian surgeon, and 9/11 team-leader Mohamed Atta is an architectural engineering graduate. “These men functioned well in groups…. They depended on a close circle of friends who reinforced their beliefs. You could almost say that those least likely to cause harm individually are most likely to do so collectively,” Sageman wrote.

Mujtaba Farooq, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, cautioned against “prematurely” drawing any conclusion that educated Muslims were turning to terrorism.

“We must remember that many of the educated, so-called terrorists who have been arrested were eventually declared innocent. Drawing quick conclusions will only make it harder for educated Muslims to get jobs, and for young Muslims to gain admission to college,” Farooq said.

The Bangalore-educated doctor, Mohammed Haneef, was held in custody for weeks in Australia last year on terror charges before being eventually deemed innocent and released.

Delhi University teacher S.A.R. Geelani too was acquitted by Delhi High Court after being accused of helping plot the December 2001 attack on Parliament.