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All links of Twitter handler with IS under probe

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Suspect could give leads to jihadists

Mehdi's apartment, who has been arrested by the Bengaluru Police, in connection with his link with the terrorist activities in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Police commissioner MN Reddy and IGP Pachau addressing media at commissioner office in Bengaluru.

BENGALURU: Hundreds of supporters of Mehdi Masroor Biswas have taken up a cyberbattle to vent their anger at his arrest, and are driving a threat campaign to free him.While the numbers are not as high as his followers when he was propagating the ISIS (which has renamed itself as Islamic State or IS) cause, the messages are certainly pouring in. Biswas, 24, who operated the pro-ISIS Twitter handle @ShamiWitness, was arrested on Saturday.#FreeShamiWitness, a new hashtag that surfaced just hours after news of Mehdi's arrest went public on the social media, is campaigning extensively for his release. "... Instead of being innocent until proven guilty you're guilty if proven Muslim," one tweet says, while another threatens that India will be invaded and all its idols will be destroyed. But it may take a while before police find out how many of them are originating in Bengaluru, or even India.By 1am Sunday, more than 620 tweets with the hashtag went online, and the number was only growing. It had crossed over 2,000 by 11am. A good chunk of them are in Arabic, a language Mehdi is fluent in. A set of tweets and retweets terms journalists 'kuffars' (non-believers) who "copied from @ShamiWitness so many times and gave him up".A supporter had also sent DCP Abhishek Goyal a threat tweet at 8.28pm Saturday, saying that "we will not leave our brothers in your hands revenge is coming wait for our reaction (sic)." Police admit it isn't easy to track the origin of posts on social media. Police commissioner MN Reddi conceded as much while taking a question on @ShamiWitness2, a handle which began operating hours after Mehdi's handle went offline.Speaking specifically about the threat message, intelligence sources said: "If someone has had the courage to send that tweet, he must also know how to operate without revealing his identity. With the use of proxy IP addresses, such users manage to set sleuths off in the wrong direction. Sometimes they go offline and stop activity, which makes it difficult to track too."But those tweeting in favour of Mehdi aren't going anywhere. The number of tweets is on the rise. They were also trending on Twitter for a while. "If they do not release will see explosions in the heart of Bombay as like iraq (sic)," 3@isis993 tweeted, while another tweet said that his/her tweet was a message from the Muslim world to the "dogs of India" to #FreeShamiWitness who "embarrassed journalists with his great analytical work".Not all messages were abusive, though. Some tweets argued quoting human rights and freedom of speech. By close to noon, some counters to these tweets also began to surface, but nothing in comparison to those wanting Mehdi freed. For example, #areyouserious @kamaalsharma said: "Irony died a million times when morons who want #FreeShamiWitness are talking about human rights and freedom of expression ..."