The enforcement directorate (ED) has pasted a notice on the ancestral house of Mohammad Umer Madni, a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, at Basopatti in Madhubani district following his disappearance after being released on bail.

A two-member team of the ED from the regional directorate office in Patna reached Balkatwa village under the jurisdiction of Basopatti police station on Thursday and pasted a notice at Madani’s house asking him to depose before the court within a month.

The notice written in Hindi states: “If you fail to comply with the order of the court... process of attachment of your property will be initiated.”

Madhubani superintendent of police Deepak Burnawal said officers at Basopatti police station were told to cooperate with the ED team. “The local police had nothing to do with the case as it is being probed by a central agency,” he told The Telegraph.

Basopatti police station house officer (SHO) Sanjay Kumar said that according to the ED team Madni is traceless since he got bail in 2010. Madni’s mother, who was present in the house, said he has not visited her for long.

Sources said Madni has shifted to Nepal where he was living in a madarsa. He had once visited his native village after being released from jail. “Thereafter he never visited his native place and was working as a maulvi (priest) in a Nepal-based madarsa,” a source said.

Basopatti, around 30km northwest of the Madhubani district headquarters and 200km north of Patna, shot into notoriety when the sleuths of Delhi police’s special cell nabbed Madni on June 4, 2009. He was on the wanted list of the special cell of Delhi police.

Madni, who had confessed to have recruited over 50 youths for the terror outfit, was granted bail in 2010. Initially, the police tried to locate him after his release on bail but failed. Finally a notice was issued against Madni asking him to appear in court.

Investigation carried out by the special cell had revealed that Madni was assigned the task by LeT chief Mohammad Hafeez Saeed to recruit youths from north Bihar and Nepal for the terrorist organisation. Madni opened a tour and travel agency — Nice Tour and Travels — at Kathmandu in Nepal in 2000 to accomplish the task.

“Madni’s father had opened a madarsa — Jamia Salafia — at Janakpur Dham in Nepal, which is close to the India-Nepal border,” said a source, citing the report submitted to the court by the Delhi police’s special cell.

Madni, who is now in his 60s, had reportedly told the interrogators that Abdul Khalid and Abdul of Nepal-based Salafi school Markaz-Dawa-Walirshad had helped to send him to Lahore in 1997 where he was trained under Daura-e-Aam and Daura-e-Khas courses run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Lakhskar.

Madni’s confessional report revealed that he had done his maulvi (Fazilat) from Jamia Salafia madarsa in Varanasi’s Revari Talab from 1969 to 1978.

Fazilat is equivalent to high school education.