NEW DELHI: There are reports that one of those taken hostage by Islamist terrorists at a café in Sidney could be Indian. However, there is another Indian connection to this unfortunate terror attack in Australia.
Pro-ISIS twitter account @ShamiWitness, which was being run by Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the West Bengal born Indian Muslim youth working in a software company in Bangalore, had predicted that Australia will soon see radicalized Muslims taking revenge against the Australian government.
OpIndia.com has accessed the following set of tweets by @ShamiWitness published around three months back, where he warned the Australian government against “terrorizing their Muslim citizens”:
Australia is waging psychological warfare on its own Muslim citizens.And not 1 media outlet seems to recognize that. (2)
— Shami Witness (@ShamiWitness) September 18, 2014
It should be noted that @ShamiWitness used to post tweets very discreetly and he used to avoid mentioning direct threat of violence and terror attacks as it could get his Twitter account suspended, but in these tweets, he is clearly warning that “Australia will have to pay” for its “anti-Muslim” acts.
OpIndia.com readers might feel that @ShamiWitness is talking about some nightclub raid in which common citizens were arrested, however, it refers to a raid on suspected ISIS supporters in a Sydney nightclub on the same day.
The day @ShamiWitness tweeted these set of tweets, Australia police had detained more than 15 people who were suspected to be planning a terror attack in Sydney.
And it seems they succeeded today. Sydney police will have to explain this.
Apart from Australia, this “Indian connection” should worry India too.
The way India is getting on the ISIS map, the next target of ISIS supporters could be India. Indian and Australia should work together on this front and share intelligence.
There are reports about many pro-Islamist Twitter accounts being run from Australia that indulge in anti-India tweets. This should be taken seriously as they could turn out to be similar threats to our security.
Australian agencies should monitor such anti-Indian Twitter accounts while Indian agencies should be monitoring accounts like @ShamiWitness that indulge in anti-Australia tweets.
