The NIA has sought the assistance of social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to identify the activities of the ISIS and the outfit’s sympathizers promoting Islamist terror ideology in the country.
Besides Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, the agency has sent requests to various other social media sites including Telegram, KIK and Surespot to obtain the information under Mutual legal Assistance Treaty (MlAT).
The disclosure by the agency was made before a designated court here where it moved a remand petition for extension of police custody of three ISIS terrorists. The three suspected ISIS terrorists include Sheikh Azhar Ul Islam, Mohammed Farhan Shaikh and Adnan Hassan who were arrested after being deported from UAE recently for their alleged links with ISIS.
The NIA told the court that the accused and their associates were extensively using the internet and social networking sites to identify and facilitate the recruitment of members for the Middle East-based terror outfit.
“During investigation it has surfaced that accused persons in pursuance of larger criminal conspiracy and in connivance with other associates have extensively used Internet and many other Internet based services and various social media sites/forums including, but not limited to WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, KIK, Surespot etc to identify and facilitate recruitment of members and promote the activities and ideology of banned terrorist organisation namely Islamic State,” the agency told the court during an in-camera proceeding.
“The data and contents of the same are required to be obtained. The request for obtaining this data is being forwarded to internet service providers under Mutual legal Assistance Treaty (MlAT) for criminal matters,” the NIA said in its remand application.
The agency further said that various electronic gadgets, including laptops, mobile phones and SIM cards, have been seized from the possession of these arrested accused and have been sent for forensic examination.
The court, after hearing the submissions, extended the NIA custody of these three accused by another 10 days.
These electronic gadgets were forwarded CERT-in last week for forensic analysis and retrieval of data, the report of which is still awaited.