Akhtar Hussein Qotb Ahmed, a businessman who Emirati authorities doubted possessed sensitive nuclear information, arrived in Bombay overnight.

"The interrogation is going on at the airport. We are investigating the charges put forth by the Dubai police," senior police official Satyapal Singh said.

"We have been told that Ahmed's brother is working in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre," Singh said, referring to a premier nuclear research centre in Bombay.

"So far he has said that this is a plot hatched by his business rivals. We are investigating all leads. It is too early to arrive at any conclusions at present," Singh said.

On Saturday, Dubai police commander general Dhahi Khalfan Tamim Ahmed said Ahmed, who had been based in the Emirates, was detained following close surveillance of his activities over several years.

He said the suspect had offered to sell information from his brother, identified as Ahmed Hussain.

"Akhtar contacted Arab diplomatic missions in the Emirates and offered to sell nuclear secrets, but they informed the authorities and he was arrested and handed back to India," the police chief said.

Tamim said Ahmed possessed no sensitive information and had admitted during interrogations that he could not have obtained the nuclear secrets he offered to the embassies.

"Akhtar was arrested after it was clear he was working alone. The Indian government was informed and an agreement was reached to extradite him to be tried under Indian law because his attempts had implications for his country's national security," the police chief said.

He said Ahmed had been extradited rather than put on trial in the UAE because he posed no threat to national security in the Emirates. The UAE also reported the case to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

India declared itself a nuclear power in 1998 but has repeatedly stressed it opposes proliferation of sensitive technology.

Rival Pakistan was hit by an arms proliferation scandal when the architect of its atomic weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, publicly confessed in February to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

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