Islamic State twitter handler case: Police seek third party help

BENGALURU: Investigators are taking third party assistance in examining tweets posted by the alleged handler of pro-Islamic State (IS) Twitter account, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a top police official said.

"Investigations are going on in the Mehdi case. Different teams are examining this case in various dimensions and we have taken third party technical assistance," City Police Commissioner M N Reddi told reporters.

Biswas was arrested from a rented one-room apartment here on December 13 by the city police after Britain's Channel 4 News aired the report on the presence of ISIS Twitter Ideologue @ShamiWitness.

He said, "Twitter company won't give analytical support, they give data; they have rudimentary analytical tools, whereas third party analysts have developed advanced tools to analyse big data in the form of tens of thousands of tweets.

"To analyse that we have taken third party help; even today there were a few discussions about it, in my opinion within the next few days there is possibility that we will have complete information," he added.

Biswas's police custody was extended by 15 days by a court here on Thursday, after his five-day police remand had ended.

Reddi said "this is a different type of case; the offence in this case is of a different nature, information is also of different nature and the way in which we will have to analyse this information is also different. So we may take some more time."

Police had earlier said investigators are looking into "every possible" connection of Biswas with the ISIS' "virtual and actual world".

They had said that preliminary investigation showed Biswas was a propagandist of ISIS ideology and had been instrumental in influencing minds against "our friendly nations against whom ISIS is at war."