What India needs is global help in war against ISIS

New Delhi, Mar 12: The submission by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) before a court that it would need the help of the US and the UAE to investigate the case against the ISIS just goes on to show how important global help is in such cases.

Such cases are difficult to crack without the help of the foreign countries since these operatives especially from the ISIS operate online.

In the case of the ISIS operatives in India, the case is similar. Most of them were in touch with each other and operatives abroad and the communication was largely online.

With the servers of these social networking sites hosted abroad, the NIA finds it very difficult to probe the second leg of the case. Although many countries have assured to help India fight terror, the responses have generally been extremely slow.

Global war against ISIS needs to speed up:

Take the case of Mehdi Masroor Biswas alias@shammiwitness who was arrested by the Bengaluru police for tweeting in favour of the ISIS. A lengthy chargesheet has been filed, but some crucial details are still missing. His email communications are still not known to the police since they are unable to get those details.

Bengaluru police had written to Google in the month of January 2015 seeking details of his accounts and passwords, but have so far not received any response. We are following it up with Google and will request them once again to share the details, the Bengaluru police say.

So far what the police has found are his tweets. The tweets that he sent out from his account@shammiwitness is all part of the chargesheet that the police have filed against him.

However, these tweets tell one part of the story and investigators believe that his email accounts could contain more information. However Biswas has been extremely fussy and non-cooperative with the investigators.

When asked repeatedly for the account details he refused to part with information. He either would say, " I do not know," or "I do not remember," or " I will not give it."

What NIA wants?

NIA on Friday told a Delhi court that it has sought assistance from the US and UAE for evidence related to social media and other chat messengers used by arrested suspected ISIS operative Mohamed Naser Packeer. The NIA said it has sent Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to both the countries in this regard.

On January 13, 2016, NIA had sent MLAT to USA and UAE requesting them to provide the evidence regarding social media and other chat/messengers services used by accused Mohamed Naser.

Reply in this regard is still awaited, the NIA also said. The court allowed the NIA's plea and extended the period of investigation against Naser in the case by one month.

OneIndia News