Interestingly, the twitter handle - @IndianMujahidin - which went silent after July 7 was used again on Wednesday. It was, however, this time not used to tweet something. The handler of the account did just 'unfollow' the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and went on silent mode again.
The fiddling with the account shows that someone must be still operating it from the location which is still unknown to the agencies.
Officials said even if it appears to be a prank, they cannot take it lightly until they verify it and reach to a logical conclusion.
"The matter is still being verified. We have done some ground-works and also taken up the issue with the Twitter Inc", said an official.
Since the person who might have opened the account used a proxy server pointing its location somewhere in Canada, the Indian agencies are verifying the details with the micro-blogging giant.
"We are trying to gather details relating to identity and IP address used to register the account. Though it could be a fake handle created by an impostor, we cannot rule out any genuine link to IM, more so as a tweet ahead of the blasts warns of an impending strike at Mumbai," a senior home ministry official told TOI.
The Twitter account appears to be created only recently. It has just two tweets so far. It claims to be the official Twitter account of Indian Mujahidin with the message "hamara maksad India se badla lena hai (our aim is to take revenge against India). Rock Sago To Rock Lo (stop if you can stop it) 7 days left".
Though "Rock Sako (not Sago) to Rok Lo" was used by the IM in its one of the six emails sent to media after series of blasts in different cities across the country during 2007-10, it could not mean much as everything (contents) relating to the outfit's emails had been extensively reported in the past.
It also claims support from D Company, a nomenclature commonly used for underworld empire of 1993 Mumbai blasts accused Dawood Ibrahim, and its motive is to take revenge with India. The first tweet from the Twitter handle dates back to 14:02 hours on July 6, and warns: "Hamara agla target Mumbai hai. Rock sago to rock lo (Our next target is Mumbai. Stop us if you can)".
On July 7, at 18:32 hours, there was another tweet saying "9 dhamake humne karay" (We carried out the nine blasts).
Officials here said there were reasons to doubt the authenticity of this purported IM twitter handle as "there are spelling mistakes". For example, the introduction spells terrorist as "terriorist". Even the 'Indian Mujahideen' is spelt different as 'Indian Mujahidin' (unlike what IM emails used). Second, past e-mails from IM have consistently stressed on its Indian roots, but this particular account follows Twitter accounts of LeT founder Hafiz Muhammed Saeed and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and four others including cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It 'unfollowed' Hafiz Saeed only on Wednesday evening keeping its 'following' list to five - a move which puzzled the agencies which have been keeping tab on the account.
Officials, however, warned against reading much into the tweet on Mumbai, as no terror group is known to give a seven-day notice to the agencies and public ahead of a strike.
A home ministry official also pointed out that, if the tweet is found to be genuine, this would be the first instance of IM using a public platform to claim responsibility. "Till now, IM has used only emails to claim responsibility for the blasts. These were sent to select media houses," the official noted.
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