Khafeel Ahmed, a suspect in the failed terror plot in Britain, showed no distinct leadership qualities and did not significantly stand out from the crowd during his tenure with Infotech Enterprises in Bangalore.
"He worked with us from December 2005 to July 2006," K S Susindar, head of corporate communications for the firm, told PTI in Bangalore on Tuesday.
Khafeel was recruited as a design engineer by the outsourcing firm when he came in as a candidate for a walk-in interview, he said.
The company recruited several people on a regular basis during walk-in-interviews, Susindar said.
Asked why Kafeel had left the firm, he said: "We do not have any clear idea why he left the firm. Our records do not reveal any specific reasons. "Nobody was aware of his plans about going to UK."
Khafeel had very few friends he mingled with during his stint with the firm. "Many of his friends have also left the company. Nobody remembers him clearly because he did not mingle and did not particularly stand out," he said.
"He was a very polite person," Susindar said adding, no one around Khafeel was aware of any of his fundamentalist leanings.
Khafeel was assigned the job of working on aeronautic designs, but Susindar refused to divulge the project he was working on. "It is very confidential," he said.
Susindar said the firm's employees did not particularly remember Khafeel for any leadership qualities.
"Perhaps seven months might have been too short a time (to judge his qualities)," he said.
Khafeel's biodata shows him as a mechanical engineer from Kuvempu University in Karnataka.
"He has also done his MPhil in aeronautics engineering," Susindar said.
"We always scan the background of candidates we recruit. Presumably there was nothing objectionable in his background that stopped us from recruiting him," Susindar added.
Khafeel came from a family of doctors. It was "a good family background" and the company had presumably nothing to suspect his antecedents, Susindar said.
Speaking about Khafeel's behaviour as an employee, he said: "Khafeel was a very sincere worker and carried out the tasks assigned to him sincerely."
According to Susindar, Khafeel's leave record did not display any long absence from work.
To a question whether he was sent overseas for any work during his brief tenure, Susindar replied in the negative.
Khafeel did not keep in touch with the firm once he had quit, he said.
Infotech Enterprises is a leading provider of engineering and geospatial services to manufacturing utlities, telecom and government verticals across the world.
