IS Publicist Nabbed from Bengaluru Apartment

24-year-old West Bengal native Mehdi Biswas working in ITC Foods admits to having operated @shamiwitness, tweeted news about ISIS, ISIL
IS Publicist Nabbed from Bengaluru Apartment

BENGALURU: Police tracked down Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the Islamic State (IS) publicist unmasked on Friday by a British TV channel, and arrested him from his house in Jalahalli here on Saturday.

Biswas used to operate the Twitter account @ShamiWitness, and allegedly interact with and incite English-speaking jihadis from across the world.

Addressing the media, Bengaluru police commissioner 

M N Reddi said the 24-year-old hailed from West Bengal and was working as a manufacturing executive with ITC Foods here since 2012. “After a police team picked up Mehdi Masroor Biswas and interrogated him, he confessed he had been operating the ShamiWitness Twitter account for many years. He has been interested in the developments in the Levantine region consisting of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Egypt and Libya from 2003,” Reddi said.

Biswas is an engineering graduate. His parents and two elder sisters live in West Bengal. His father is a retired employee of the West Bengal State Electricity Board. In Bengaluru, Biswas used to work during the day and trawl the net late into the night. “He took a 60GB monthly Internet connection and used to read all breaking news related to ISIS and ISIL. He used to tweet by aggregating information,” Reddi said.

Biswas was allegedly close to English-speaking terrorists of the ISIS and hid his identity, confident it would never be revealed.

An FIR has been registered under Section 125 of the IPC (inciting violence against nations sharing friendly relations with India), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act of 2000 against him. Biswas had been active on Twitter since 2009, but there was no evidence on whether he was a terror recruiter. He used to translate Arabic into English and post it online.

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