It was the mistake of talking twice to Channel4 and the time-tested method of old-style tracking through elimination process by central agencies that proved to be the undoing of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the 24-year-old executive with a giant foodconglomerate in Bengaluru, purportedly running the Twitter handle of ISIS@ShamiWitness.
Unable to receive immediate help from micro-blogging site Twitter to locate theInternet Protocol Address and track the exact location of the gadget used for tweeting, intelligence agency officials turned to the elimination process and narrowed down to 74-odd youth named Mehdi, as mentioned by Channel4.
What clue did his T-shirt give?
Since raiding all the 74 youth would have been difficult, intelligence officials looked at the next clue -- Mehdi's Bengali accent. A seasoned voice analyst helped them zero down on the age profile of a youth in his early 20s. The T-shirt, with which Mehdi blurred his face while appearing on Channel4, was all that the senior sleuths needed to further narrow down their task. To get the results of similar-looking T-shirts, they simply used an open source Google App. Mehdi had also posted the picture of his masked face on Twitter.
What did agency officials do then?
A quick late-night check with a couple of engineering institutes located in Panihati and Kaikhali in West Bengal gave the finishing touches and police teams were at Mehdi Masroor Biswas' one-room apartment in Jalahalli, Bengaluru, at 11 pm. Mehdi was still sitting at his computer and did not resist police at the time of his arrest.
Will his arrest have repercussions?
Intelligence agency officials do not see a direct threat from terrorists on account of blowing the cover of @ShamiWitness. However, with no direct case against Mehdi yet of recruiting or radicalising youth for ISIS or terrorism, a big challenge before the agencies is how to take the case to its logical conclusion.
What are officials saying?
"It's a new trend of educated youth that is not fully committed to go out and fight but yet wants to do something that it thinks is a just cause. It may not be a direct threat but has the dangerous potential to radicalise new generation in hoards," said a senior officer in a security agency. Bengaluru police commissioner M N Reddi said: "After the interrogation for the past few hours, as of now, we don't see his involvement in any kind of terrorist activities within the country…As of now, he has never recruited anybody nor did he facilitate any such activity within India. He has never travelled outside India. He has been only in the virtual world."
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