 "Bengaluru police arrest man behind pro-IS Twitter handle")
After carrying out searches for around 24 hours, the city police on Saturday said it had arrested the man running a pro-Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) Twitter handle from here for several years.
The man, identified as Mehdi Masroor Biswas (pictured), was arrested from a rented apartment in the north of this city, Police Commissioner M N Reddi said. A first information report has been filed against Biswas, charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act, 2000, of the Indian Penal Code.
Biswas, 24 and an engineer hailing from West Bengal, has been working as a manufacturing executive with ITC Foods here since 2012. In a statement on Saturday, ITC said it was cooperating with investigative agencies in this regard. “An employee has been arrested by the Bengaluru Police in connection with allegedly objectionable social media activity carried out under a pseudonym. We informed the police about his employment status as soon as we found media reports on this issue, and have extended every co-operation with the investigation process,” said an ITC spokesperson.
The company did not provide the details of his employment.
Biswas’s father was an employee of the West Bengal State Electricity Board, said L Pachau, Director General of Police, Karnataka. His parents, as well as two elder sisters, reside in West Bengal.
Biswas, who posted pro-ISIS messages on micro-blogging website Twitter with the handle - @ShamiWitness, had confessed he operated the account, police confirmed. “He (Biswas) was particularly close to the English-speaking terrorists of ISIS and became a source of incitement and information for new recruits trying to join ISIS,” the police said in a statement. “Through his social media propaganda, he abetted ISIS in its agenda to wage war against Asiatic powers. He was careful in hiding his true identity and was confident it would never be revealed.”
The police’s crime branch had started a probe into the matter on Friday, after a report by British public-service television broadcaster Channel4 claimed it had tracked down a pro-ISIS Twitter handle operating out of Bengaluru.
However, the same day, a report by Indian intelligence authorities said the Channel4 claims might be hoax.
Late on Friday, Channel4 released an interview with Biswas, in which he said he was ready to surrender but added he feared for his life. “I want to state clearly that I won’t resist arrest when the time comes,” he said. “I don’t have any sort of weapons with me. I have no intention of resisting.”
In the interview, Biswas asserted he had done no wrong against India. “I haven’t harmed anybody; I haven’t broken any laws of the country…I haven’t raised any war or any violence against the public of India...I haven’t waged war against any allies of India. They might try to bring that charge...I just said stuff; people followed me; I followed them back and then we talked. I only knew what the ISIS fighters or sympathisers said in public tweets.”
Goings-on in the Levantine region, including Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Strip, Egypt and Libya, had attracted Biswas since 2003.
Asked why his story was trending across the world, he said: “I think for the first time, there’s a Muslim who can actually enunciate in English and get the message across, which has really pissed off our enemies, the enemies of Muslims.”
After the Channel4 report, Biswas’s Twitter handle was taken down, following which other pro-ISIS twitter accounts, such as @Marwan_Tunsi and @aldawiawi, have also gone off the site.
Biswas’s Twitter account had about 17,800 followers and published about 130,000 tweets, seen more than two million times a month. Perhaps, this is the highest following any pro-ISIS Twitter account has had so far.
In the Channel4 interview, Biswas had said he would have joined the ISIS had his family not been financially dependent on him.
AL QAEDA AND ISIS IN INDIA
The man, identified as Mehdi Masroor Biswas (pictured), was arrested from a rented apartment in the north of this city, Police Commissioner M N Reddi said. A first information report has been filed against Biswas, charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act, 2000, of the Indian Penal Code.
Biswas, 24 and an engineer hailing from West Bengal, has been working as a manufacturing executive with ITC Foods here since 2012. In a statement on Saturday, ITC said it was cooperating with investigative agencies in this regard. “An employee has been arrested by the Bengaluru Police in connection with allegedly objectionable social media activity carried out under a pseudonym. We informed the police about his employment status as soon as we found media reports on this issue, and have extended every co-operation with the investigation process,” said an ITC spokesperson.
The company did not provide the details of his employment.
Biswas’s father was an employee of the West Bengal State Electricity Board, said L Pachau, Director General of Police, Karnataka. His parents, as well as two elder sisters, reside in West Bengal.
Biswas, who posted pro-ISIS messages on micro-blogging website Twitter with the handle - @ShamiWitness, had confessed he operated the account, police confirmed. “He (Biswas) was particularly close to the English-speaking terrorists of ISIS and became a source of incitement and information for new recruits trying to join ISIS,” the police said in a statement. “Through his social media propaganda, he abetted ISIS in its agenda to wage war against Asiatic powers. He was careful in hiding his true identity and was confident it would never be revealed.”
The police’s crime branch had started a probe into the matter on Friday, after a report by British public-service television broadcaster Channel4 claimed it had tracked down a pro-ISIS Twitter handle operating out of Bengaluru.
However, the same day, a report by Indian intelligence authorities said the Channel4 claims might be hoax.
Late on Friday, Channel4 released an interview with Biswas, in which he said he was ready to surrender but added he feared for his life. “I want to state clearly that I won’t resist arrest when the time comes,” he said. “I don’t have any sort of weapons with me. I have no intention of resisting.”
In the interview, Biswas asserted he had done no wrong against India. “I haven’t harmed anybody; I haven’t broken any laws of the country…I haven’t raised any war or any violence against the public of India...I haven’t waged war against any allies of India. They might try to bring that charge...I just said stuff; people followed me; I followed them back and then we talked. I only knew what the ISIS fighters or sympathisers said in public tweets.”
Goings-on in the Levantine region, including Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Strip, Egypt and Libya, had attracted Biswas since 2003.
Asked why his story was trending across the world, he said: “I think for the first time, there’s a Muslim who can actually enunciate in English and get the message across, which has really pissed off our enemies, the enemies of Muslims.”
After the Channel4 report, Biswas’s Twitter handle was taken down, following which other pro-ISIS twitter accounts, such as @Marwan_Tunsi and @aldawiawi, have also gone off the site.
Biswas’s Twitter account had about 17,800 followers and published about 130,000 tweets, seen more than two million times a month. Perhaps, this is the highest following any pro-ISIS Twitter account has had so far.
In the Channel4 interview, Biswas had said he would have joined the ISIS had his family not been financially dependent on him.
AL QAEDA AND ISIS IN INDIA
- Earlier this year, Al Qaeda announced it was setting up a branch in India
- In a video spotted in online ‘jihadist’ fora on September 4, Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri said the new force would “crush the artificial borders” dividing Muslims in the region
- In June, ISIS declared a ‘caliphate’ and its chief Baghdadi took the title of Caliph Ibrahim, posing a serious threat to Al Qaeda
- Security agencies feel the Zawahiri video could be an attempt by Al Qaeda to counter its diminishing influence vis a vis the ISIS
- In August, the parents of three Muslim boys reported their sons had left to join the ISIS’s fight in Iraq and Syria