Mehdi Masroor Biswas' twitter handle, @shamiwitness, had over 17,000 followers.
Twenty-four hours after the arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the man accused of being behind the pro-ISIS Twitter handle @ShamiWitness, the Bangalore police received a few threat calls. Various tweets also surfaced, calling for revenge against the police who arrested Mehdi on Saturday and questioning the validity of the arrest.
"We will not leave our brothers in your hand. Revenge is coming wait for our reaction," said a tweet from @abouanfal6 in response to Bangalore Crime DCP Abhishek Goyal's tweet on Mehdi's remand.
The Bangalore police have brushed off the threats, saying they are "only a few tweets". "Let's not attach too much importance on these," an officer said.
Mehdi was arrested from his one-room flat in Bangalore's Jallahalli in the early hours of Saturday. After watching his interview with UK-based Channel 4, the authorities traced him by the T-shirt he was wearing. The investigation took 14 hours.
He has been remanded in police custody for five days for questioning.
Police said Mehdi was not in direct contact with jihadis and had no role in recruitment. He was in contact with some English-speaking IS men on Twitter, but he was careful to conceal his identity from them.
He used to translate Arabic tweets into English and uploaded data and videos on the Twitter handle @shamiwitness, which had over 17,000 followers, police said.