New Delhi: More than 60 per cent followers of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the Bengaluru-based executive, who was running a pro-ISIS twitter account, were non-Muslims and a majority of his Muslim followers were from western countries, particularly the UK, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday.
Making a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha, he said 24-year-old Mehdi had indicated during interrogation that his activities were limited to posting and reposting of pro-ISIS material on his twitter account and social media sites and he has denied having recruited any person for ISIS.
“Mehdi started following the developments in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan on internet during his college days and has been active in the social networking sites since 2009. Over a period of time, he
started interacting with people in social media sites. However, he has denied having recruited any person for ISIS,” he said.
Singh said Mehdi came to prominence in the electronic media in the UK on account of his role in circulating ISIS material through the tweeter account.
Mehdi used to visit prominent ISIS related sites, mostly in Arabic language and then translate the contents into English and repost the material on his twitter account ‘Shami Witness’.
Singh said Mehdi belongs to a middle class family from Kolkata and had done his electrical engineering from Guru Nanak Dev Institute of Technology in 2012 and joined ITC Foods in Bangaluru following campus recruitment.
He was working as a “manufacturing executive” with ITC Foods staying in a one-room apartment in the IT city.
