A day after the Twitter handle @ShamiWitness was deactivated, two other Twitter accounts with similar names showed up on the microblogging site. As of Saturday night, @ShamiWitness2 had 717 followers, and @ShamiWitness_2 had 1249 followers. Both had the same profile picture and cover photo as the original.
The name Shami is derived from Shams, the Arabic name for the Levant, the region covering Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Cyprus.
Police Commissioner M. N. Reddi said they were trying to find out if the handles were created by Mehdi Biswas after he deleted @ShamiWitness, or if they had been created by someone else.
Mr. Reddi said the probe had so far not indicated any associates, and that he “acted alone” on the net.
