Ministers of the Crown and government officials soon became suspicious as well. Rumours were circulating that Rafiuddin had links to radical Muslim groups in Afghanistan and was a spy for the Amir of Afghanistan. Rafiuddin had surfaced in British politics in December 1892 as a journalist and a barrister. Born in 1865 in India and educated at the Deccan College, Poona (present-day Puné), he had travelled to London to study law at King’s College. After a stint at the Middle Temple he was called to the Bar in 1892. He was a member of the Muslim League, a political organisation in India, and published several articles in the Strand Magazine, Pall Mall Gazette and Black and White. An ambitious man, Rafiuddin had befriended Abdul Karim and through him won access to Queen Victoria. Through her offices and with the help of Karim, he had met the Lord Chancellor. He had managed to charm Victoria who gave him an example of her Hindustani Journal and a photograph of herself, which he published in the Strand Magazine in December 1892.
