Ranchi, Nov. 21: The Union home ministry is understood to have alerted Jharkhand police about a few Muslim fundamentalist groups trying to build a following in the state, specifically mentioning an Odisha-based cleric who has been camping in Ranchi for the last three days and allegedly making incendiary statements while addressing community meetings.

ADG and Jharkhand police spokesperson S.N. Pradhan refused to comment on the Centre's missive, which sources claimed reached the state capital early this week, but admitted that police were closely watching the activities of Abdul Rahman Katki.

Katki, intelligence sources claimed, and local residents confirmed, addressed a public meeting of 60 people at Chatwal village in Chanho on the outskirts of Ranchi, where he allegedly issued a call to arms to "save our religion that was under threat the world over."

Pradhan confirmed to The Telegraph that Katki, who has been a frequent visitor to Jharkhand over the last year, was on the watch list of state police and central security agencies. "He is from Cuttack and is known for making communal speeches which is not the job of a preacher or a cleric. This much I can say that his conduct has been very doubtful..." the ADG said.

After last night's meeting at Chanho, where Katki is said to have spoken for an hour or so, a local resident said, he held a closed-door meeting with around a dozen people at a mosque. Earlier, however, when he visited Hindpiri, a primarily Muslim locality in the heart of Ranchi, residents did not allow him to hold a meeting there.

Police and intelligence sources claimed Katki, in his early 40s and heading a madarsa at Odisha's Bilteruan in Tangi, Cuttack, harboured links with several radical outfits. He has travelled widely across north Indian states, including Jammu and Kashmir, where he has addressed several meetings.

"Now he is eyeing eastern Indian states and Jharkhand seems to be his priority since he has been coming here frequently in the last one and a half years," said a police officer. "We have come to know that he has created quite a following in Ranchi and parts of Jharkhand, especially in Lohardaga, where he arrived soon after sectarian clashes broke out in September and stayed on for a week," he said.

Senior police officers admitted that Jharkhand had become a safe haven and a hunting ground for terrorist outfits. While Indian Mujahideen had used Ranchi boys to ferry and possibly plant explosives at a Narendra Modi rally in Patna in October 2013, two persons were arrested from Sahebganj and Pakur for the October 2014 blasts at Burdwan in Bengal.