Sitting in a dingy lane of Bimannagar at Kaikhali near Dumdum airport, the 64-year-old Mekail Biswas and his wife, Mamtaz Begum, finds its tough to believe that their only son, the 24-year-old Mehdi Masroor Biswas, has been arrested by Bengaluru police for allegedly acting as one of the chief propagators of the militant group Islamic State of Syria and Levant (ISIL) or simply the Islamic State (IS).
"I can't believe it. It is not possible. He told me last night that his email id and twitter account had been hacked," Mekail Biswas told HT on Saturday morning after learning from HT about the news of his son's arrest.
Biswas retired in 2010 as an assistant engineer from the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Corporation. The two-storey house that he built after retirement has no signs of luxury. Sitting on the first floor of that Spartan house, it was quite clear from the face of Biswas that this was the biggest shock in his 64-year old life.
"He (the son) is religious, but not fanatic enough to join a terrorist group. He was never taught in any madrasa and doesn't even know Arabic," said Mamtaz Begum, sitting in a room on the second floor of their two-storied building at Kaikhali, near Dumdum airport in Kolkata.
Mehdi Masroor Biswas had appeared in secondary exams from Indira Gandhi Memorial Senior Secondary School near their home and studied higher secondary at Kendriya Vidyalaya.
He graduated with a Btech in electrical engineering from a private engineering college affiliated to the West Bengal University of Technology and got job at a multinational firm from campus interview.
"It is not impossible for one to had weak corners for a caliphate, since we had caliphate in the Islamic history. But how can such a young boy be a prime campaigner for a militant group that is active thousands of miles away?" Biswas wondered, almost to himself.
Life has changed for the couple since Friday night, when they first learnt that their son is being suspected as the person behind the most popular twitter handler account, Shami Witness. They had a sleepless night on Friday and have not eaten anything till Saturday afternoon.
On Saturday morning, Mehdi Biswas' elder sister and her husband rushed to the house.
"She spent the whole night crying. All we want to do now is to reach Bengaluru anyhow, as early as possible," said Biswas, visibly shaken.
A retired assistant engineer of the West Bengal state electricity board, Biswas has been suffering from neurotic disorder and is undergoing treatment.
Significantly, in his interview to British broadcasting agency, Channel 4, Mehdi Masroor Biswas had said that he would have physically joined his comrades in the areas dominated by IS militants had his family not needed him.
The news comes as a greater surprise for the couple as, over the past four months, they had been with their son at his rented place in Bengaluru, where they went for Biswas's treatment. They returned at the end of November.
"We stayed four months together. There was no reason to suspect anything," his mother said.
However, Friday morning was not like every other day for them. Usually, Mamtaz Begum calls up her son at 7.30 am every morning to wake him up for office. On Friday morning, she found her son was already awake.
However, it was only at Friday night that they could guess why their son was awake in the morning. He did not sleep all night.
"My son told me that he learnt through the net on Thursday night that he was being suspected as an ISIS campaigner. He could not sleep since then. He told me he was the victim of some conspiracy," Mekail Biswas told HT on Saturday morning.
"He's such a bright student. He hardly mixes up with anyone, has few friends and leads a disciplined life. Of the few friends he has, most are Hindus," Biswas said. He hails from Baduria area in North 24-Parganas district but relocated to Kolkata with the aim of providing better education to their only son and two daughters.
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