Bangalore, Sept. 2: A youth was arrested in Bangalore late last night as part of a crackdown on a "terror module" in Karnataka in which 17 persons have been picked up so far.
Mohammed Akram, 22, was arrested when he was about to board a bus to flee the city.
"We seized a 7.65-caliber pistol and 16 live cartridges from Akram," said city police commissioner Jyotiprakash Mirji.
Police have intensified search operations after the arrest of 11 persons, including a city journalist, a doctor and a Defence Research and Development Organisation employee, three days ago for allegedly having links with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul Jihad-al Islami (HuJI).
They were allegedly plotting to kill MPs, MLAs and media persons in Karnataka.
The police said Akram had claimed he was from Nanded in Maharashtra. Four of his accomplices were arrested in Nanded and one from Hyderabad in the past few days, an officer said.
The police had sealed all exit points of the city to arrest Akram.
"He was planning to execute target killings in the city. This was according to a plan the group had worked out," Mirji said.
The police are probing if Akram was in touch with terrorists during his year-long stay in Saudi Arabia.
The terror module was allegedly funded by Dubai-based financiers and run by terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
"They had plotted to attack vital installations like the Kaiga Atomic Power Station and the Sea Bird naval base," Mirji said. Both the installations are along the west coast and about 350km from Bangalore.
"They were plotting to kill a leader of a Hindu organisation in Hyderabad and two corporators of the BBMP (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, the city corporation) in Bangalore," he added.
At least two well-known Kannada journalists were also on their target list, Mirji said.
Police sources said investigations on how the arrested youths came together and arranged for weapons to carry out killings and possible bomb attacks had revealed that they were radicalised through several ultra-Islamic channels.
All of them were "deeply influenced" by the al-Qaida Internet magazine Inspire. They also read several ultra-orthodox publications, the sources said.