SHEHZAD TANWEER may have been a good-looking, sporty lad with a lean physique and fashionably dyed hair but he had no interest in chasing girls and was happier devoting his spare time to prayers.

In the past six months the 22-year-old suicide bomber had travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, bringing him into contact with al-Qaeda trainers and propagandists. In his final months, the cricket and ju-jitsu enthusiast, nicknamed “Khaka”, was said to have turned into a quiet loner, always politely eschewing company by saying he was on his way to a mosque or a prayer meeting.

An uncle, Bashir Ahmed, 52, said he feared that the large, close, extended family would now have to leave Leeds, the city they have made home for a generation after leaving the Faisalabad area of Pakistan for a better life. Mr Ahmed, speaking outside the fish-and-chip shop run by Shehzad’s father, Mumtaz, said the young man had done a “terrible thing”. But he did not blame his nephew for the bombing, saying instead that it was the fault of “forces behind him”.

He said: “Shehzad had never been in trouble before. So what drove him to do it? It can’t be him. It must be something else behind him.

“It has come as a complete shock. He was respected by everybody and respected everybody in return. We were respected by the community — but how is the community going to treat us now?”

Shehzad never expressed an interest in politics but was a devout Muslim. Saj, a friend bearing an Arabic-script tattoo on his arm, said Shehzad “was a quiet lad, religious. He used to go to every mosque in Beeston and there are loads of mosques around here.”

Mahmood Khan, who worked in the chip shop, South Leeds Fisheries, said: “Shehzad was very religious. He used to go to the mosque a lot. He didn’t like girls. He didn’t have many friends but he was a nice, quiet person.”

Shehzad, who lived at 51 Colwyn Road, Beeston, used to volunteer to play sports with children at a local community centre.

In the period leading to his death, Shehzad and a friend left Leeds for days at a time, but nobody knew the purpose or destination of their travels.

Arif Butt, a community elder at Stratford Street mosque, said: “I feel for all the family. They are a very well-respected family. Shehzad’s father is a very well-respected businessman.”

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