Bengaluru executive behind Islamic State's top Twitter account arrested
HT Correspondents, Hindustan Times New Delhi/Bengaluru, December 13, 2014Bengaluru police have arrested Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the man named by UK-based Channel 4 as the one behind terror group Islamic State’s (IS) most influential Twitter handle.
Karnataka Director General of Police L Pachau and Bengaluru Police Commissioner M N Reddi, at a press conference on Saturday, said Biwas confessed in custody that he ran the Twitter account @ShamiWitness.
![http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2014/12/isisitwitter1.jpg]()
Screen grab of the now deactivated @ShamiWitness Twitter account.
Screen grab of the now deactivated @ShamiWitness Twitter account.
Biwas, who is working with a multinational food company, confessed that he helped new IS terror recruits with his tweets and was close to English-speaking members of the terror outfit, police said.
He took a 60GB monthly internet connection and used to tweet well into the night, Reddi said, adding that Biswas also used to read all breaking news websites related to IS.
The 24-year old engineer was careful in hiding his true identity and was confident that it will never get revealed. His identity was exposed in an investigation by UK-based Channel 4 and inputs were passed on to Indian agencies.
Biwas was booked under the penal provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for spreading the ideology of IS which is globally recognised as a terrorist organisation.
Son of a retired assistant engineer who worked with the West Bengal Electricity Board, Biswas was tracked to his house through his mobile phone which he did not attempt to switch off.
The Bengaluru police managed to get in touch after getting inputs from their counterparts in Kolkata.The Kolkata police contacted the registrar of Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, Sodepur, where Biswas studied and collected his photographs and admission details from the institute.
The Bengaluru police managed to get in touch after getting inputs from their counterparts in Kolkata.The Kolkata police contacted the registrar of Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, Sodepur, where Biswas studied and collected his photographs and admission details from the institute.
Channel 4 had claimed that Biswas used to run the Twitter account @ShamiWitness with over 17,000 followers, “two-thirds of whom are foreign fighters” fighting for the IS in Iraq and Syria. His tweets were seen over 2 million times making him the “most influential twitter account” for the IS.
Biswas was frequently seen "advising" people planning to join the IS. One tweet gave advice on how to cross the Turkish border to cross over to Iraq. UK's Channel 4 contacted him around December 3 following which he shut down his Twitter account.
Biswas has been in Bengaluru from 2012 where he joined a food corporation as a trainee before being absorbed as a permanent employee in 2013.
Biswas was also one of the few to tweet the videos depicting the beheading of US social worker Peter Kessig by the IS within minutes of it being uploaded. Another tweet also encouraged the "deaths and rapes opf Kurdish fighters" fighting the IS in Iraq.
(With inputs from Saikat Datta in New Delhi and Sudipto Mondal in Bengaluru)