Al-Qaida suspects cleric Abdul Rahman (37), alias Katki, and aide Abdul Sami (32), who were brought to Jamshedpur on transit remand from Tihar Jail on Monday night, were sent to police remand on Tuesday morning.

While the court of chief judicial magistrate G.K. Tiwary allowed police to grill the duo for seven days in connection with a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act registered at Bistupur thana on January 25, SSP Anoop T. Mathew said they would pray for remand extension.

"We expect intelligence teams from Delhi, Odisha and Maharashtra to interrogate Katki and Sami. We need to know if there are more Qaida operatives in the steel city, apart from two more suspects, one of them being Masood Ahmed who is currently lodged at Ghaghidih Central Jail. There are other questions to be answered like whether Katki, Sami and Masood went to Pakistan for arms training," the SSP said.

He added that they would file a separate petition in court, seeking police remand of Masood (38), after an initial round of grilling Katki and Sami. "The entire interrogation procedure will demand more time (than the granted one week," he explained.

The al-Qaida's Jamshedpur link unfolded last year after a team from Delhi police arrested Katki from Cuttack in Odisha early in December. Katki's interrogation led to the arrest of Sami, who is a resident of Dhatkidih in Bistupur, from Haryana on December 18.

Masood, also a resident of Dhatkidih, was nabbed from the steel city by Delhi police on January 22 this year followed by the arrest of Mango man Nasim Akhtar (40), who allegedly supplied arms and ammunition to al-Qaida operatives in Bangalore.

Police had recovered a sophisticated pistol from Masood's house. During interrogation, Masood confessed to his links with the terrorist outfit since 2003, when he met Katki in Jamshedpur, and that he was the person who had motivated Sami to join the Qaida in 2011.

It was on the basis of Masood's confession that Bistupur police registered a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act against the quartet.

Ghaghidih jailer Mohammed Nasim said Katki and Sami were taken into police remand around 3pm on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, when the two suspects were produced in court, members of Jamshedpur Bar Association had declared that none would plead for their bail.

However, association member Hamid Raza later came forward and offered legal assistance to the duo.