ISIS threatens Bangalore Police after Mehdi’s arrest, warns of revengePolice had on Saturday said that Biswas has "confessed" that he was handling the pro-jihad tweeter "@ShamiWitness" that became a source of incitement and information for new ISIS recruits. By: Press Trust of India | Bengaluru | Posted: December 14, 2014 6:04 pm | Updated: December 14, 2014 6:38 pm A senior police officer has received a threat in connection with the arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the alleged handler of the most influential pro-Islamic State (IS) Twitter account, even as the latter was remanded in five-day police custody. “Bengaluru CCB Police has got five days police remand of Mehdi Masroor Biswas. He was presented before the Magistrate last night,” DCP(Crime) Abhishek Goyal said on Sunday. After Biswas was picked up on Saturday, Goyal received a threat message in reply to his tweet about the arrest of the 24-year-old engineer working as “manufacturing executive” with ITC Foods in Bengaluru from his one-room apartment here. “@goyal_abhei we will not leave our brothers in your hand Revenge is coming wait for our reaction,” reads a reply from twitter handle @abouanfal6. Responding to the threat, Goyal said he is not taking it much seriously. “Personally I’m not taking the threat much seriously…. taking it in stride and not much alarmed,” he said. On the basis of “credible” intelligence inputs received on the presence of ISIS Twitter Ideologue @ShamiWitness in Bengaluru, the city police chief had formed a special team, which closed in on Biswas and arrested him. Bengaluru Police had launched a manhunt for Mehdi after Britain’s Channel 4 News had aired the report regarding the country’s IT capital’s link with the Twitter account that is followed by foreign jihadis. Police had on Saturday said that Biswas has “confessed” that he was handling the pro-jihad tweeter “@ShamiWitness” that became a source of incitement and information for new ISIS recruits. Biswas has been arrested under Sec 125 of IPC (whoever wages war against the Government of any Asiatic power in alliance or at peace with the Government of India or attempts to wage such war, or abets the waging of such war), Sections 18 and 39 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Section 66 of the Information Technology act, they had said. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/isis-threatens-bangalore-police-after-mehdis-arrest-warns-of-revenge/Tweeter on IS held, roots in Bengal- Not a recruiter: Police |
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 Mehdi Masroor Biswas. Bangalore News Photos "Mehdi Masroor Biswas is not a terror suspect; he's a man who lived in the virtual world carrying out IS propaganda. According to our information, he had not recruited anyone or facilitated any such activity within India," Bangalore police commissioner M.N. Reddi said. Mehdi, a manufacturing executive with ITC Foods in Bangalore, is from Kaikhali in North 24-Parganas, about 20km from Calcutta, where his parents live. His 72-year-old father Mekal Biswas, a former supervisor with the erstwhile West Bengal State Electricity Board, said Mehdi had told him over the phone last night that he may have been framed by a hacker. Mehdi has "confessed" to being the man behind @ShamiWitness - among the most followed propaganda tools on IS - and will be produced before a magistrate tomorrow, Reddi said. Britain's Channel 4 News, which spoke to the man behind @ShamiWitness over the phone and ran a story, did not reveal his full name. An electrical engineer by qualification, Mehdi was a campus recruit who joined ITC Foods as a trainee in 2012 and had his job confirmed in March this year on an annual pay package of Rs 5.3 lakh. "He did not resist arrest," said joint commissioner Hemant Nimbalkar, who led the raid on the one-room flat where the young man lived alone. Mehdi has been charged under the Indian Penal Code's Section 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with India), Sections 18 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (inciting or abetting terrorist acts, and support given to terrorists) and Section 66 of the IT Act (computer-related offences). Reddi said Mehdi had come through as a die-hard IS supporter but not as a recruiter and there was no evidence so far about his possible links with any militant organisation in India. "He has never travelled outside India," Reddi said. "He's only been in the virtual world with extremist messages to incite his readers, especially from English-speaking nations." ITC Foods CEO Chittaranjan Dhar told The Telegraph: "I (came to) know about this only today, but I've never met this man." A company statement said: "We informed Bengaluru police about his employment status as soon as we found media reports on this issue, and have extended every cooperation with the investigation process." Biswas said he hadn't seen any unusual activity in the four months that he and his wife Mumtaz, 64, had spent with their son before returning a fortnight ago. He contradicted the Bangalore police's claim that Mehdi used to be active on the Internet late into the night, saying his son went to bed early. "We have been trying to find out about this but his friends don't want to speak to us," he said at his two-storey house in Kaikhali's Bimannagar neighbourhood, near Calcutta airport. "We need to go (to Bangalore) immediately but we can't afford air tickets and haven't been able to get a train reservation. His flat in Bangalore is under lock and key... and we don't have the money for a lengthy hotel stay. We don't know what to do." Biswas added: "We also need legal advice and support from friends and family, but nobody is coming forward now. It's a desperate situation." Mehdi had studied at the Indira Gandhi Memorial School in Dum Dum before joining the Guru Nanak Institute of Technology in Sodepur in 2008 and graduating in 2012. Preliminary investigations suggest that Mehdi began taking an interest in radical religious sites around 2009, Reddi said. He was most likely radicalised in the Web world, initially as an al Qaida supporter. The commissioner said Mehdi appeared to be a loner without a social circle, and his flat in Gangammanagudi was hooked up to a 60GB monthly high-speed Internet connection. Asked why it took a media expose for the police to learn about this Twitter handle, Reddi said the lack of a direct reference to Bangalore had helped "Shami Witness" evade the radar. He said Channel 4 had taken an interest in the account because "much of the patronage it received was out of the UK". "Shami Witness" would tweet the terror group's beheading videos, speak to fighters before they left to join the IS and after they arrived, and praised them as martyrs after their death. He had told Channel 4 the reason he hadn't joined the IS was his family's financial dependence on him. But he had denied radicalising his online followers. Although India is yet to formally ban the IS, Reddi said Section 125 of the IPC would apply. "The section does not require that a particular organisation is banned; it only requires waging war against a friendly nation," he said. "His tweets show that he has abetted the waging of war against Asiatic powers that are on friendly terms with India." Reddi was referring to tweets backing the outfit's acts and deriding the governments in Iraq, Syria and other nations in the Levant region. |
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ISIS threatens Bengaluru police after Jihad tweeter Mehdi arrest, warns of revenge
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