We have cast-iron case against Mehdi Masroor Biswas: Cops

BENGALURU: Investigators questioning ISIS tweeter Mehdi Masroor Biswas, 24, say they have a “cast-iron” case against him under section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act and brush aside doubts expressed in the legal fraternity over the “lack of serious charges.”

Biswas has been charged under IPC section 125, which deals with waging war against a country or alliance friendly to India. He has also been charged with sections 18 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and section 66(F) of the IT act, which deal with conspiracy and cyber-terrorism.

A senior officer, investigating the case, told ET: “Lawyers evidently don’t read treaties that are signed with the United Nations. Isis is a banned organisation under international law. Biswas was tweeting their ideology. Period. No further doubts can be raised about the strength of the case. We have accused Biswas of cyber terrorism as he has been tweeting Isis ideology. Now we will get all the evidence needed to prove those charges.” According to his interrogators, Biswas does not know Arabic and understood the Isis tweets that he later re-tweeted, through Google translation.

“No translation is perfect and we don’t know how much of what he retweeted he phrased correctly,” the officer said. The officer said Biswas strongly believed in the concept of an Islamic State --as propagated by Isis -- and was dismissive of Indian Muslims as “sarkari salafi.”

The reference is to the Salafi stream of Islam which, in Pakistan, is close to the Pakistan establishment and army, in contrast to the Deobandi stream to which the Taliban is said to belong. “From this we gather that for Biswas, Indian Muslims have accepted the Indian state as against the Islamic state which is ruled by Allah and the Sharia,” the officer said.

Drawing a parallel between Biswas’ passion for the Islamic Caliphate propounded by Isis and the fervour that youth in general have for communism, the officer said: “He has got attracted to such ideology when he was 18 or so, probably spread by Al Qaeda, as the Isis did not exist six years ago. For Biswas, the kick is in the combination of the state and religion. That is his trigger.”