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Malaysian police have searched the homes of the pilots of the Malaysia Airlines plane
that vanished eight days ago with 239 people on board.
The police are also reportedly looking at the family life and psychological state of
pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27.
This comes after the authorities said the communications systems of the plane had been
deliberately disabled. The Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight is believed
to have then changed course. According to satellite evidence, the Boeing
777 could have continued flying for a further seven hours after its last radar contact,
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said. He added that the plane could be anywhere
from Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean. Mr Razak stopped short of saying it was a
hijacking, saying only that they were investigating "all possibilities".
In a separate development, India on Sunday suspended its search for the plane around
the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands and also in the Bay of Bengal.
Delhi said it acted at the request of the Malaysian authorities.
China - which had 153 citizens on board flight MH370 - has urged Malaysia to continue providing
it with "thorough and exact information" on the search.
'Elaborate suicide' The Kuala Lumpur homes of Mr Zaharie and Mr
Fariq were searched on Saturday, a senior police officer familiar with the investigation
was quoted as saying by Reuters. "We are not ruling out any sort of motivation
at the moment," the official said. The authorities have so far released no new
details on the pilots' investigation. However, nothing has been ruled in or out
- so terrorism, piracy or even an elaborate suicide are all options now being considered,
the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Kuala Lumpur reports. Mr Zaharie joined Malaysia Airlines more than
30 years ago, and was considered a very experience pilot.
Mr Fariq recently recently graduated to the cockpit of a Boeing 777. It is believed that
he was considering marriage. It was also reported that Mr Fariq had drawn
scrutiny after he and another, unnamed pilot invited two female passengers to sit in the
cockpit during a flight in 2011, according to the Associated Press.