A food delivery agent hailing from Assam has been arrested by Karnataka’s Central Crime Branch police on suspicion of radicalizing youths.

The accused, identified as Akthar Hussain, was arrested from BTP locality in Bengaluru’s Tilaknagar where he lived with three friends since February 2020, police said.

“We produced the suspect before a court and took him into 10-day police custody for further questioning. He was living with three other people. They have also been questioned but were let off as they have no links. However, we have asked them to appear whenever needed,” a police officer said.

A local resident said he had never interacted with Hussain as the latter worked mostly at night.

“We used to see him during the night. Around 5pm on Sunday, some five police officials came and by 8pm, about 30 more police personnel came and picked him up,” he said.

Hussain had radicalised youths, however, further information would be available only after further interrogation, police informed, adding that a raid was also conducted on another suspect in Tamil Nadu, who allegedly had links with Hussain.

“We had inputs from agencies and based on them, a raid was conducted and the accused was taken into custody,” said city police commissioner C H Pratap Reddy.

It is learned that the raid in Bengaluru was conducted in coordination with the state’s Internal Security Division and the intelligence wing.

An investigation is underway to find out if he has links with any terrorist outfit,