Bengaluru: A city court has extended the police custody of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the alleged handler of the ISIS twitter account @shamiwitness, for 15 days till January 2.
Mehdi, who was produced before magistrate on Saturday night, was remanded in police custody for five days. As it got over on Thursday, the CCB police, who are probing the case, produced Mehdi before the City Civil Court on Thursday afternoon. They requested the judge to extend his police custody.
The officers told the court that they had received a huge data about Mehdi’s tweets and they were in Arabic language. Thus, they wanted some more time to verify them and to interrogate him about the messages. They requested the court to extend the police custody for a period of 25 days.
Mehdi’s counsel Zafar Shah objected and told the court that Mehdi was already in the police custody for five days and there was no necessity to extend it for another 25 days.
At this point the magistrate asked Mehdi whether the police harassed him and did they treat him well. Mehdi told the court that the police had allowed him to meet his parents and there was no problem from the police.
Then the magistrate extended his police custody for another 15 days, till January 2. The police had made elaborate security arrangements at the court complex as Mehdi was being brought there. More than 50 policemen, including a DCP, three ACPs and six inspectors, were deployed there.
Meanwhile, Mehdi’s counsel said that he had not met Mehdi so far and he had spoken to his parents.
“I will meet Mehdi soon and apply for his bail in the court,” he added.
Mehdi’ parents, who had come to the city on Tuesday night, are still in the city. On Wednesday, they had met city Police Commissioner M. N. Reddi.
The police had questioned them for over six hours on Wednesday and had gathered information about Mehdi’s childhood and his activities during college days.
