Mehdi Masroor Biswas ‘undoubtedly’ behind @ShamiWitness handle: Official

Bengaluru: Mehdi Masroor Biswas is reportedly behind @ShamiWitness, the pro-jehadi twitter handle.

According to a top official source, Mehdi is “undoubtedly” the man behind his pro-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) tweets on @ShamiWintess, which had over 18,000 followers, two million viewers and two-thirds of all foreign fighters, who have allegedly joined the ISIS, followed his tweets.

“There is no doubt that Mehdi was posting his tweets on @ShamiWitness. Nobody has hacked into his account. He was outed by Channel 4 last week, which was tracking his tweets and exposed him. Mehdi didn’t cover his tracks well even as he was posting his pro-jehadi tweets,” said the officer on condition of anonymity.

To a question whether Mehdi had masked his IP address, he said, “He had made some mistakes, which helped expose his trail.” He refused to divulge any more details.

Mehdi had denied that @ShamiWitness was his twitter handle and had told a media house that somebody had hacked his email account - ElSaltador@gmail.com and used it to upload “stuff”. He had reportedly added that in his interview with Channel 4, he did not deny that @ShamiWitness was his account because they (Channel 4) would not have believed him.

Mehdi’s father, Dr Mekail Biswas, a retired West Bengal government employee has also stated that his son is innocent and his account was hacked by some “enemy”.

Mehdi was arrested on December 13 under Section 125 of the Indian Penal Code (for waging 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 and was remanded to five-day police custody, which ends on Thursday