The Intelligence Bureau (IB) wants to set up an office in Bhagalpur, around 234.6 km east of Patna, to keep a tab on the activities of operatives of terror groups and on those involved in organised crime in districts along the India-Nepal border.

Mahesh Dixit, joint director of the IB, has written to the Bhagalpur district magistrate asking him to provide government land for setting up the office, which will be headed by an IPS officer.

The district administration received the letter a couple of days ago.

Bhagalpur additional district magistrate Harishankar Prasad said on Wednesday that the circle officers of Sabour, Jagdishpur and Nathnagar blocks, which are close to the district headquarters town, have been directed to search for land for the IB office.

Efforts are also on to hire a separate building to run the office on a temporary basis, he added.

A senior official posted in Bhagalpur said that this is the first time the IB, which functions under the Union home ministry and is primarily assigned to maintain internal security in the country, has decided to set up its office outside the state capital.

Authoritative sources said the arrest of Maoists and operatives of terror groups such as Indian Mujahideen, al Qaida and Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and from the region has prompted the IB to set up its office in Bhagalpur, which is also close to the Jharkhand border.

The main accused in the Ahmedabad serial blast case, Tauseef Khan, and his associates are learnt to have told their interrogators that there are terrorist sleeper cells in Bihar. Tauseef was living in Gaya since 2008.

Tauseef and his associates Mohammad Sarwar and Shane were arrested in Gaya last week after the owner of a local cyber café informed the police about Tauseef's suspicious activities.

Later, it was disclosed that Tauseef was one of the main conspirators of the Ahmedabad serial blasts that had killed 56 people and left over 200 others injured.

Sarwar admitted that he was actively involved in the activities carried out by Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and was also appointed state chief of the outlawed organisation.

The name of Sarwar had also cropped up on the radar of the security agencies while probing the Bodhgaya serial blasts of July 2013.

In March this year, another terror suspect Shivam Soni was arrested from Cheria Bariarpur in Begusarai district.

He was later handed over to the Uttar Pradesh anti-terrorism squad, who nabbed some of his accomplices from that state.

Earlier, the East Champaran police had busted a group that allegedly tried to derail a train near Ghorasahan.

Two members of the group allegedly backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Deepak Ram and his brother Arun Ram, were allegedly killed in Nepal for their failure to keep their promise made to al Qaida.