Twitter has been asked to retrieve all data connected to ShamiWitness.

Twitter has been asked to retrieve all data connected to ShamiWitness. (IndiaTimes).

Madhya Pradesh counter terrorist group (CTG) and Anti-Terrorist Squad (MPATS) have reportedly rounded up three youths, from Jabalpur district, who followed and interacted with ISIS propaganda Twitter account @ShamiWitness run by Mehdi Masroor Biswas.

The trio, which was picked up from district's Rampur Patel Mohalla on Wednesday night, was among 17,700 followers of Mehdi's Twitter handle.

IP address of around 50 'objectionable' emails received on Biswas's email id were traced to their computers in Jabalpur by the Bengaluru police who subsequently contacted their MP counterparts for further investigations, said sources.

More than one lakh replies to the tweets of Biswas are being scanned.

Police are also analysing whether any of these followers have anything to do with ISIS or any other jihadi outfits.

Twitter has also been asked to retrieve all data connected to @ShamiWitness, including the deleted messages and replies from its data bank by the police.

Jabalpur Inspector General (IG) Srinivas Rao and MPATS chief Sanjeev Shami, however said no arrest had been made related to @ShamiWitness.

"Some other agency must working on it...not us," said Rao citing 'detentions' could be just a rumour.

But, insiders claim that detainees are being grilled and would be released only after scanning contents of the mail. Read the full story here.

Shami Witness: “Beheadings are discussed in Quran and Hadith itself and I don’t think an honest Muslim will ever say he is against beheadings per se.”

ISIS twitter handle turns out 2 be a so called educatd employed Bglr muslm Mehdi M Biswas. #ShamiWitness #Gharwapsi pic.twitter.com/Nvac6tf1fx
— @$|~|!m@ (@ashimasingh99) December 12, 2014

Shami Witness: “Beheadings are discussed in Quran and Hadith itself and I don’t think an honest Muslim will ever say he is against beheadings per se.” (HINDU).

Bengaluru City Police are on the trail of the handler of the anonymous pro-ISIS twitter account @ShamiWitness, identified as city-based Mehdi by British public-service television broadcaster Channel 4 News.

City Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi, told The Hindu that Central Crime Branch (CCB) was already on the job and refused to share further details.

The Channel 4 News, story says that his identity was revealed through a Google+ account, of an email id he used, to create a now defunct twitter account which he used before as @ShamiWitness.

The twitter handle @ShamiWitness active since last year, had 20,000 followers and nearly two million visitors a month. The twitter handle was seen as one of the chief disseminators of pro-ISIS propaganda on the web. The account handler was also suspected to be a recruiter of Jehadi fighters for the ongoing fight in Syria.

Channel 4 News, confronted the man in Bengaluru, whom they have only identified as Mehdi. Mehdi, in his telephonic interview to Channel 4 News, said,

“If I had a chance to leave everything and join them I might have… My family needs me here.” He declined that he was a recruiter and said that there were real reasons for people to get ‘radicalised’ and that jehadi fighters followed him did not mean he was responsible for them.

In a chilling statement, when asked whether he approved of all the methods of ISIS including executions and beheading, he said, “Beheadings are discussed in Quran and Hadith itself and I don’t think an honest Muslim will ever say he is against beheadings per se.” To the question whether he was an honest Muslim, he fumbled and said “I try to. But I am not sure if I am.”

Channel 4 News has quoted him as describing himself as ‘a marketing executive working for an Indian conglomerate’ on his Facebook page.

The twitter handle @ShamiWitness, his Facebook accounts are all deleted now. Unverified claims on the net, by those who claimed to have accessed the cache copies of these social media accounts, say that his full name is Mehdi Masroor Biswas, hailing from West Bengal.

Wow #Shamiwitness Google+ gives his full name :Mehdi Marsoor v @green_lemonnn some even suggested he is a Shia(Mehdi) pic.twitter.com/uJUSQfd4Qh

— Elijah J. Magnier (@EjmAlrai) December 11, 2014

One example of Shami witness's sick tweets! RT @KekHamo: @Kgthetweet @Nervana_1 @BlogsofWar pic.twitter.com/Kgi3zk3bIb How #Twitter

— Nervana Mahmoud (@Nervana_1) December 11, 2014

#ShamiWitness tells @simonisrael: ' I haven't done anything wrong' - listen http://t.co/aQpsqQmBTs #c4news pic.twitter.com/lqxl2pnqku

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 12, 2014

Shami Witness unmasked: 'they're searching for me' - #c4news http://t.co/4jtTZaErz9

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) December 12, 2014