JOIN USMehdi case may make security agencies sit up and take notice
The @shamiwitness case may have come as an eyeopener to intelligence and security agencies on the thriving social networking propaganda for ISIS in the country.
Moreover, the revelation by a British news channel is of great concern for the agencies in the IT City. Though the Twitter handle has been shut down owing to the revelation by the British channel, the investigation so far has shown that the alleged handler Mehdi Mansoor Biswas has been active in Twitter world since 2011.
Sources said that Mehdi’s West Bengal connection was evident from the fact that he used to tweet supporting Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which is responsible for the Burdwan blast.
The British channel had reportedly accessed Mehdi's twitter account through his personal email address ElSaltador@gmail.com, which was used to set up @ElSaltador, a personal twitter account Mehdi used before opening @shamiwitness.
The channel thus got access to his Facebook account, created using the same email ID. The channel also got his photo, but used it after censoring the face. However, someone using a webcache retrieved the original photo and released it on the Internet. A senior police official said that the veracity of the photo is yet to be established.
“Mehdi’s twitter account was opened in 2011 and he started tweeting about Syria. Initially, he supported Al-Qaeda in Iraq and his support for ISIS intensified after ISIS’s battle in Syria. He used to tweet hatred postings against Assad regime and the count of followers of his tweets rose all of a sudden when he tweeted stating that Iran was a greater danger to the Sunni community when compared to Israel,” a source said.
Besides his twitter handle, his blog had been viewed 18,177 times till Thursday. After his cover was blown by the British channel, as a last message Mehdi posted stating “May Allah protect and expand Islamic State. May Allah destroy those who allied with taghout agents to fight dawlah.”
A senior police official said that from the information gathered so far, it was found that Mehdi was a mere sympathiser of ISIS activities in the beginning.
However, his popularity, from a meagre 1,200 followers to a whopping 17,700 followers, among British fighters encouraged him to intensify his participation. In his brief interview with the British channel, Mehdi said, “If I had a chance to leave everything and join them I might have.. my family needs me here.”
Adding more to it were his tweets in support of British jihadists killed while fighting for Islamic State.
“you bros (brothers) talked the talk, walked the walk”. And, in condolence to another killing of a jihadi, Mehdi Hassan, Mehdi's tweet was “May Allah give you brothers decisive victory there”.