The suspect, Mohammed Haneef, 27, was detained in Australia in connection with failed car bombings in London and an attempted attack on Glasgow airport last Friday and Saturday. He was about to fly home to see his infant daughter.

"We are confident that he will be released in a day or two," said Shoaib, 20, his brother. "Australian officials have told us he has only been detained for questioning."

"He is such a good person that no one will be able to find a single negative in any corner of his record or conduct," Shoaib said in an interview at the family's three-bedroom apartment in Bangalore's middle-class Richard Park area.

Haneef's wife Firdous had been distraught since hearing news Tuesday of her husband's detention and moved to her father's house with her week-old baby to avoid visitors, the brother said.

His mother Qurrathulain sat in a bedroom weeping while relatives and reporters crowded the third-floor apartment.

Haneef, who was employed at the Gold Coast Hospital on Australia's eastern Queensland state, was described as an ideal family man who sought to improve himself and help others.

He put his brother and sister, Sumayya, through school and college after their father's death in a road accident and studied on a scholarship at the B.R. Ambedkar Medical College in Bangalore, from where he graduated in 2002.

One faculty member remembered him as a "quiet, sober" student.

"We can't believe he would be involved in something like this," B.S. Ramesh, an assistant professor of surgery, said. "Of course it can't be ruled out totally."

His sister Sumayya said he was "moderately religious." Although he prays five times a day and fasts during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in keeping with Islamic religious tenets, he enjoys Hindi music and movies.

He is "a very humble and good-natured man," said Sumayya. "We have faith in god. My brother will return with honour and respect."