More details have emerged about an Islamic sect that lived together underground for nearly a decade on the outskirts of the city of Kazan in Russia.

The leader is in police custody as the state decides whether to charge him with "entrapping his followers and their children".

Shamil Ibragimov, 29, and his four children aged two to nine, were among the 70 sect members Russian police found living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight.

"Sometimes they let me out, or else I just jumped over the gate and got out," he said.

Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan reports from the Russian capital, Moscow.