A microwave assisted strategy for synthesis of series of 1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-7(6H)-ones has been developed and their biological evaluation as anticancer agents is described. The synthetic protocol involves simple procedure by oxidative coupling of 4-amino-1-methyl-3-propyl-1H-pyrazole-5-carboxamide with different aldehydes in presence of K2S2O8 offering 5-substituted-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-7(6H)-one compounds in excellent yields. The in vitro anticancer activity screening against human cancer cell lines HeLa, CAKI-I, PC-3, MiaPaca-2, A549 gave good results. The in detailed mechanistic correlation studies of compound 3m revealed that the compound shows anticancer activity through apoptosis mechanism and also inhibits mTOR with nonomolar potency. The design was based on docking with mTOR protein. The concentration dependent cell cycle analysis, western blotting experiment and nuclear cell morphology studies have been described.