BENGALURU: Micro-blogging site Twitter has been abuzz since Friday with posts about 24-year-old Islamic State propagandist Mehdi Masroor Biswas, arrested in Bengaluru early Saturday.
Biswas was allegedly one of the champions of the Islamic State’s worldwide social media campaign. Tweeting as @ShamiWitness, he had 17,700 followers, some of them jihadists.
Late on Saturday, after the arrest drama had played out, Twitter witnessed a campaign titled #FreeShamiWitness.
Started by IS supporters, the campaign urged followers and believers to tweet, using the hashtag #FreeShamiWitness, to demand his release.
Many claimed the arrest of Biswas and the closing down of his accounts amounted to suppression of the freedom of expression.
@EarthsStranger said, “By attacking ShamiWitness They thought they would stop #IS support on twitter They just created 100s of Shami’s.”
Another user, @whiteminaret, said, “Whether you support ISIS or not, stand for #ShamiWitness.”
Followers also quoted lines from a message purportedly sent by ISIS to its followers, telling them that the loss of three Twitter ‘soldiers’, one of them being Biswas, should not deter them.
On another note, a Twitter user was disappointed @ShamiWitness was no real expert. James Miller, who tweets under the handle @MillerMENA, said, “So many counter-terrorism experts considered @ShamiWitness to be an authority on Syria. Too bad he was just some loser in India...”
Shiraz Maher whose handle is @ShirazMaher, wrote: “@ShamiWitness cheered when people were beheaded - but when outed by the news, he begged for privacy claiming his life would be endangered.”
While Biswas’ Facebook and Twitter accounts @ShammiWitness and @ElSaltador have been deactivated, his blog is still up for all to see. It says, “This blog is dedicated to news and analysis related to the free people of this planet, specially the ones throwing away tyranny in Bilad ash Sham.”