IT firm will dissect Mehdi Biswas’s 1.29 lakh tweets as cops can’t

BENGALURU: A company from India's Silicon Valley will have a new account in its hand, thanks to Bengaluru police. The cops are outsourcing the task of analyzing 1.29 lakh tweets on @ShamiWitness, Mehdi Masroor Biswas' pro-ISIS Twitter handle, because they lack the expertise to do the job. The investigation, senior officers indicate, cannot progress without these tweets being deciphered. "We are outsourcing the data analysis work to an agency. The job will take some more time given that there are more than a lakh tweets and 1,700 handles that had followed @ShamiWitness," police commissioner M N Reddi told reporters on Saturday. The work requires technical expertise, which the police department lacks, he admitted. Refusing to name the companies being spoken to, Reddi said: "We are seeking outside help as this isn't a normal criminal case but requires much more specialization. We are in discussion with third parties for the job, which will commence soon." TOI