Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, June 21: The crime branch's special task force officials today brought Abdul Rehman, 37, a cleric, who had been arrested from his residence in Cuttack for his suspected link with al Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), to the state for further investigation.

On December 19, Delhi police arrested Rehman, whom the Salepur JMFC court granted a 10-day remand.

Rehman was brought from the Tihar jail in Delhi amid tight security and later produced in the court. Tension prevailed near the court premises after a group of people raised slogans in Rehman's support outside during his production.

Sources in the crime branch said Rehman would be quizzed to find out his operation in the state. The police, during its preliminary investigation, had found the cleric's link with a Banglore-based youth, who succumbed to born injuries in a failed bid to ram an explosive-laden vehicle into Glasgow International Airport in 2007.

"Our prime focus will be to extricate information about his Pakistan links, what other countries he had visited and his links in Odisha and the source of funds that he used to receive for running a madarsa at Tangi," said special director-general of police (crime branch) B.K. Sharma.

Sharma said Rehman's entire involvement starting from getting children, conversion them into jihadis and other recruitments will be probed.

In January, Delhi police's special cell had filed charge sheet against 17 persons, including Rehman, for allegedly recruiting Indian youths in AQIS.

The investigating agency had filed charge sheet for the alleged offence under provision of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The police are also suspecting Rehman of indoctrinating radical ideas to the students enrolled in a madarsa run by Rehman at Tangi. "We will try to ascertain the source of money coming to the madarsa and whether he had trained any youths to join in the terror outfit," said a crime branch official.

Rehman had studied in an Uttar Pradesh-based madarsa and holds a Phd in religious literature from Deoband Islamic University in Uttar Pradesh. Following his arrest, the madarsa was shut down and the students were handed over to their parents.

The police have also found his elder brother's involvement in terrorist attack on the American cultural centre in Calcutta in 2002 - in which five people were killed and around 20 others suffered injuries. The police had said his elder brother Mohammad Tahir was arrested for allegedly giving shelter to the attackers in Jagatpur of Cuttack district. Eighty-five students, mostly from Jharkhand, have enrolled themselves at the madarsa. The cleric had also under the scanner of Jharkhand police for provocative speech during communal meetings in the state, few months before his arrest.