For over a week now, Crime Branch officials have been grilling a man, who they say, led them to the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s Mumbai chief Faizal Ataur Rehman Sheikh and its city module.

The man, Feroz Deshmukh, 29, a librarian at a research foundation’s office in the city, however, hasn’t been arrested yet. Crime Branch officers say in a couple of days they will hand him over to the Anti-Terrorist Squad probing the July 11 serial blasts.

Deshmukh is believed to be a close associate of Raheel Abdul Rehman Sheikh, 24, one of the prime suspects in the Aurangabad arms haul case and now on the run, said sources.

Sources also said that unlike the other men about whom Deshmukh made disclosures during questioning, Deshmukh has not received any terrorist training in Pakistan.‘‘But,’’ said a Crime Branch officer, ‘‘ Deshmukh is an important catch. It was he who spilled the beans on Faizal. When we were interrogating him, he asked us why we were asking him so many questions about Raheel, when a bigger catch would be Faizal.’’

Before zeroing in on Faizal and his software programmer brother Muzzamil, the Crime Branch had picked up Unani doctor Tanveer Ahmed Ansari, Sohail Abdul Ghani Sheikh and Zamir Ahmed Latif Chaabiwala—all of whom are now in police custody and are said to be members of LeT’s Mumbai module.

‘‘Deshmukh knows Sohail and Chaabiwala to some extent,’’ a Crime Branch officer said. He lived in the Grant Road area of South Mumbai, and went to a local school where he studied up to Class XII. He didn’t go to college, according to the investigators, who are now figuring out how Deshmukh got associated with the Lashkar while working as a librarian.

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