Preliminary interrogation of pro-Islamic State tweeter Mehdi Masroor Biswas has revealed that his activities were limited to posting pro-IS material on social networking sites.
He has denied involvement in recruitment of any person for the IS, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament on Monday.
Making a suo motu statement over the arrest of Mehdi, Mr. Singh said that while further investigation was on, the accused has revealed that “his activities were limited to posting and reposting IS material on his Twitter account and other social media sites.”
The 24-year-old was arrested by the Bangalore Police last Saturday after a British news channel revealed that the Indian executive was a supporter of IS through his Twitter handle @Shami Witness.
“He used to visit prominent IS-related sites, mostly in Arabic, translate the contents into English and report the material on his Twitter account,’’ Mr. Singh said.
K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj reports from Bengaluru
National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths probing cases of IS activities in the country will interrogate Mehdi and look into “possible links” to other terror cases they are investigating.
Sources said NIA officials from Mumbai will examine whether Mehdi had links to known IS activists in the country. They will investigate whether Mehdi played a role in radicalising Indian youth through his Twitter handle or otherwise.
NIA officials across the country are questioning youths arrested for suspected IS links in this connection. While NIA officials are expected to confront Mehdi with the information gathered from suspected IS activists in NIA custody, their focus will be on the “real world links” to his tweets.
Meanwhile, city police are likely to book Mehdi under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for outraging the modesty of women. A senior official said a review of his 1.3 lakh tweets revealed that several of them supported rape of Kurdish and other women. Representatives of Twitter India met the investigating officials on Monday and handed over the information they had sought about the Twitter handle @ShamiWitness.
