How black tape helped Parbhani ISIS sympathisers evade investigators

black tape

Naser Bin Yafai Chaus, the 31-year-old civil contractor, and one of the two Parbhani-based arrested ISIS sympathisers, was in touch with the Syria-based handler Farookh for over a year. Throughout this period, he managed to evade security agencies and made preparations for an attack. Now, ATS has finally found how Chaus and other IS sympathisers managed to keep themselves off security agencies' radars. One of the ways was by the use of only a black tape.

Also read: Parbhani 'ISIS men' wanted to bomb Aurangabad, Nanded police HQs

ISIS sympathisers cover their cellphone cameras with black tape in order to conceal their identities during video conversations. Picture for representational purposes

ATS sources said that the IS handlers have taught their foot soldiers in India various ways to evade security agencies. One of these ways was revealed in this recent crackdown of Maharashtra ATS in Parbhani.

Sources said that instead of making phone calls the suspects have started using data-based video-calling. But after IS handlers learnt that the security agencies have started hacking their video calls with the help of ethical hackers, they have become smarter. They (terror suspects) have started pasting black tape on the front camera of their mobile devices while video chatting with each other. This prevents reorganization of their faces by the security agencies even if their video calls are hacked.

After Naser's arrest, when ATS officials seized his belongings, they noticed one unusual thing. The three mobile phones seized from Naser had black tape pasted on their front cameras. When investigators inquired about this, the modus operandi of how IS sympathisers evade agencies was revealed. "We suspect, the foreign handler Farookh, who is believed to be Ansar ul Tawhid (AuT) chief Shafi Armar alias Yusuf, taught Naser this modus operandi to evade arrest," said an ATS officer.