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He is religious but not a fanatic: Mehdi’s father
Like every day, Mamtaz Begum rang up Mehdi Masroor Biswas from her two-storey home in a Kolkata suburb at 7.30am on Friday, a mother’s customary wake-up call to her engineer son ever since he moved to Bengaluru to work for ITC.
Like every day, Mamtaz Begum rang up Mehdi Masroor Biswas from her two-storey home in a Kolkata suburb at 7.30am on Friday, a mother’s customary wake-up call to her engineer son ever since he moved to Bengaluru to work for ITC.
But 24-year-old Mehdi was already awake.
By nightfall, mother Mamtaz and 64-year-old father Mekail Biswas became aware why their son was up so early. He hasn’t shut his eyes ever since British news channel, Channel4, blew his cover — that he was the most influential Islamic State (IS) tweeter, @ShamiWitness, with more than 17,000 followers and 200,000 hits per month.
“He is religious but not a fanatic to join a terrorist group. He didn’t go to madrasa and doesn’t even know Arabic,” said Mamtaz.
Horror descended on the Biswas household when news flashed about the police hunt for Mehdi, the youngest of three siblings who is a BTech in electrical engineering from a private college affiliated to the West Bengal University of Technology.
“My son told me on Thursday night that he was being suspected to be an IS campaigner. He told me he was the victim of some conspiracy,” said Mekail, anxiously stroking his bearded face at his modest home near Dumdum airport after learning about his son’s arrest on Saturday.
“I can’t believe it. It isn’t possible. He told me on Friday night that his email ID and Twitter account have been hacked.”
Mehdi did his schooling at Indira Gandhi Memorial Senior Secondary School and at Kendriya Vidyalaya before he got his engineering degree and found a job through campus placement.
“It isn’t impossible for one to harbour a soft spot for a caliphate since we had one in Islamic history. But how can such a young boy be a prime campaigner for a terror group that is active thousands of miles away?” asked Mekail, a former assistant engineer with the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Corporation who retired in 2010.
“He’s a bright student, keeps to himself, has few friends and leads a disciplined life. Of the few friends he has, most are Hindus,” said the father who suffers from a neurological condition.
Mehdi has admitted to Channel4 that he would have joined IS but responsibilities for his family held him back. “We stayed four months with our son (in Bengaluru). He betrayed no signs to suspect anything,” Mamtaz said. The parents returned to Kolkata in November-end.
