How shamiwitness dodged the Indian agencies

India

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By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, Dec 12: Indian Intelligence agencies are in touch with their counterparts in the United Kingdom in connection with the shamiwitness case. An officer with the Intelligence Bureau informed that they were in touch with the authorities in the United Kingdom seeking out more information since Mehdi the man who ran the account was in touch with British Jihadis.

UK concerned:

It was the United Kingdom which has the largest number of foreign fighters in the ISIS, which had been repeatedly concerned about the tweets on @shamiwitness which was active since November 2011. There was a lot of propaganda and he was in touch with the British fighters for a long time which initially raised the concern.

Officials in India who are trying to track him down have prima facie not found anything as yet linking him to activities in India. He was one among the many internet activists of the ISIS which has 21000 twitter handles in various names.

What the Indian agencies found that he was in touch with British fighters through which he sourced information and posted it online.

Most viral handle:

Mehdi Masroor Biswas was also one of the first to post the recent beheadings by the ISIS. All the internet chatter that was done by him was related directly to either Britain, Iraq or Syria. Over the past one year he had become one of the most influential social media campaigners for the ISIS.

What made him extremely influential is that he never shot his mouth off. He had countered reports of Human Rights violations by the ISIS. Moreover he has been with them ever since the ISIS was called as the AQI or the Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Keeping the heat away:

What the Indian investigators are trying to find is if he had propagating content that led to recruitments in India. However it appears that he had stayed away from India for the fear of his cover being blown and he was enjoying all the adulation that he was getting from foreign fighters. Most of his interactions were from Britain.

He had successfully managed to conceal his identity for a very long time. It was always believed that he was a Syria or Iraqi national. This helped him to keep the Indian agencies away from his trail. He deliberately did not speak about India and had he done so, there was a chance of him being tracked down immediately since he did all his online work from Bangalore.

The case:

Even if he is nabbed the Indian agencies would once again find themselves in a catch 22 situation as to what case is to be booked. Once again the question of the ISIS not being banned in India comes up. Moreover unlike in the Arif Majeed case where there was physical action such a thing cannot be found in this case. An officer said that it is too early to comment on that and we will see what is to be done. However if we manage to secure his custody we will need to book him.

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