Police submit chargesheet against IS supporter Mehdi Masroor Biswas

Bengaluru: The city police on Monday submitted the chargesheet against Mehdi Masroor Biswas, pro-Islamic State  (IS) propagandist, under Sections 18 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Section 125 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for waging a war against an Asiatic power in alliance or at peace with the Government of India and Section 66 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, before the first Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) court in the City.

Mehdi’s is the first case of cyber terrorism in Bengaluru which has been investigated and chargesheeted by the city police. The 36,986-page chargesheet contains all the tweets and blogs that Mehdi had reportedly written and translated in defence of the banned violent global jihadi organisation IS.

He was arrested on December 13 last year from a single bedroom apartment in Jalahalli in Bengaluru, North after he was outed in a covert interview with the British public-service
television broadcaster Channel 4 in which he had reportedly confessed that he was behind the twitter handle @ShamiWintess, which had over 18,000 followers, two million viewers and two-thirds of all foreign fighters, who have allegedly joined the IS.

Later Mehdi in an interview with an Indian media house denied that @ShamiWitness was his twitter handle. The 24-year-old former executive in a giant food conglomerate in Bengaluru has been lodged in judicial custody at the Bengaluru Central Prison since December.