Suo Motu Statement by the Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh in Parliament on the arrest of a youth running Twitter handle on behalf of ISIS

Following is the text of the suo motu statement made by the Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh in Parliament today on the arrest of a youth running Twitter handle on behalf of ISIS:

“Mehdi Masroor Biswas aged around 24years was arrested on December 13,2014 by the Bangalore Police in case crime No.01218/2014 u/s 3,13 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,1967, Section 66 F of the Information Technology Act and Section 125 of the Indian Penal Code. The accused had come to prominence in the electronic media in the U.K regarding his role in circulating ISIS material through a Twitter account. The central agencies worked in close collaboration with the Karnataka Police to develop information leading to his arrest. Mehdi had a Twitter account under the username “Shami Witness”. He used to visit prominent ISIS related sites, mostly in Arabic Language and then translate the contents in to English and repost the material on his twitter account.

During interrogation Mehdi disclosed that more than 60% of his twitter account followers were non-Muslims from western countries and a majority of his Muslim followers were from the western countries, particularly the U.K. Mehdi started closely following the developments in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan through internet during his college days and has been active in the social networking sites since 2009 . Over a period of time Mehdi started interacting with people in the social networking sites on matters related to “Jihad”.

Mehdi belongs to a middle class family from Kolkata and has done his electrical engineering from Gurunanak Dev Institute of Technology in 2012. He joined ITC following a campus recruitment drive and is currently employed there.

The interrogation of Mehdi Biswas has indicated that his activities were limited to posting and reposting of pro ISIS material on his Twitter account and social media sites. He has denied having recruited any person for ISIS.

Further investigation is in progress.”

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(Release ID :113332)

Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB)