Britain's prestigious London School of Economics had become the focal point of recruitment of Islamic fundamentalists in late 1990s and hosted at least three terrorists with Al-Qaeda links including Omar Sheikh, who is said to be behind last week's attack in Kolkata.
Authorities at LSE, known for its far-left radicalism in the 1960s, recognised that fundamentalist activity was getting out of control in 1995 when extremist groups - who want to see an Islamic state founded in Britain - recruited on campus, Sunday Telegraph reported.
The students union was asked to check the credentials of all members of the Campus Islamic Society to ensure they were bona fide members. The college threatened to close the society's prayer room unless it took decisive action.
Sheikh, 28, who was one of the three militants released by India to end the hijacking of an Indian Airlines passenger aircraft in Kandahar in 1999, has also been named as one of the key financiers of Mohammed Atta, the pilot of one of the jets that hit the World Trade Centre on September 11.
The daily said Sheikh became involved with radicals while at the LSE after he finished private schooling in Snaresbrook in East London.
The daily said quoting friends that in 1993, while in his second year at the LSE, Sheikh went to Bosnia on an aid mission, and converted to an extreme form of Islam. He later played a leading role among Kashmiri separatists.
Indian police seized him in a 1994 shootout after three British backpackers were kidnapped.
Another alleged terrorist, who was arrested in Delhi last month for reported involvement in the recent attack on Parliament, lectured to Muslim students at the LSE in 1993, the report said.
A third man enrolled on a computer course at the LSE in 1992, police were quoted as saying. They believe that he used his position to recruit members for the militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed.
There was a resurgence of fundamentalist activity in the campus two years ago when members of Al-Muhajiroun, an extremist group, tried to recruit volunteers at a freshers' fair. They were expelled by security staff.
Robert Kilroy-Silk, television presenter
and former Labour MP who was a student at school in the 1960s, said: "the
LSE is a wonderful place because it brings together different people from
across the political, social and religious spectrum. It is inevitable that
some of those people will veer towards the extremes." (PTI)