The banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had been plotting a major blast at a ?crowded public place? in the city. The revelation, police said, has been made by 33-year-old Lashkar leader Tariq Akhtar, arrested on Madan Street on Tuesday evening.

Based on information provided by Akhtar, the city police arrested two other members of the outfit, in Jamshedpur and Varanasi, on Wednesday.

An electrician who had been to Qatar between 2001 and 2003, Akhtar had come to the city from Jamshedpur a few days ago and was camping here to pick up raw material for explosives and inspect the site where the outfit had planned to carry out the blast.

?The three are members of the group that had masterminded blasts in Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi. They might have also been involved in the attack at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,? police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee said on Wednesday. ?It?s too early to know their game plan, but the arrests are a great breakthrough.?

Akhtar, who admitted being a dedicated Lashkar member, had been to Pakistan, where he lived for two years before returning to Jamshedpur. In 2001, he took up an electrician?s job and left for Qatar, where he joined the Lashkar.

Back in Jamshedpur two years later, Akhtar started recruiting members for the outfit. After some time, he left for Bangladesh. ?It was in Bangladesh that he was trained in handling explosives,? commissioner Mukherjee said. ?He is an expert in improvised explosive devices. We have recovered several incriminating documents from his Jamshedpur house. He had been to Calcutta in the past and seems to have recruited youths from here, too.?

Following Akhtar?s interrogation, police raided the residence of Noor Ahmed, 28, in Jamshedpur and arrested him. Several Lashkar leaflets and 16 detonators were seized from the house. Ahmed?s statements led the cops to Varanasi, where they rounded up Abdullah Juber, 30.

Jharkhand police sources said Tariq had asked Ahmed to keep the detonators days after the recent Delhi blasts.