Bengaluru: The city Police Commissioner, M N Reddi, has said that the police was trying to trace the origin of the threat message posted on the Twitter account of the DCP (Crime) Abhishek Goyal.
“The threat message has been given the importance it deserves. We will deal with such messages in our own way,” Reddi said. Following the arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who had allegedly handled the ISIS Twitter account @shamiwitness, Goyal had received a threat message from a Twitter handle @abouanfal6 that stated, “We will not leave our brothers in your hand, Revenge is coming, wait for our reaction,” in reply to the press note about Mehdi’s arrest that Goyal had posted in his Twitter account.
Remanded for 5 days
A day after the arrest, Mehdi was produced before a magistrate at his residence in Koramangala around 12.30 am on Sunday. Though the police had sought 15 days police custody, the magistrate gave permission for only five days. Later Mehdi was taken to the interrogation centre in Madiwala. The police are now studying Mehdi’s follower network on Twitter. Officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) also arrived to question him.
“Preliminary investigation shows that he is a propagandist of ISIS ideology and has been instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly nations against whom ISIS is at war. His virtual or actual relations are under intense scrutiny. Investigation is looking into every possible way of his connect with ISIS virtual and actual world. The investigation is also looking into presence of any of the domestic connect or sleeper cell existing or not. The follower network is being studied,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Hemant Nimbalkar said.
On Sunday afternoon, a team led by a CCB ACP took Mehdi to the apartment where he was staying and got the footage recorded by the CCTV cameras installed there. The police will go through the footage to know whether any person regularly visited Mehdi.
Another officer said, “We are investigating whether he was getting any funds to manage the Twitter account. We are also scrutinising his bank accounts. But he is strongly denying that he recruited anyone to the terror outfit. However, he said that he did not give away his personal details in the Twitter account fearing that it would pose a threat to his life, besides fear that he would be arrested. The police are yet to send the two mobile phones and a laptop seized from him for examination by experts.
