New Delhi: The Delhi Police sent more than 100 takedown requests to Meta in the past 10 months to remove social media profiles linked to ISI-backed Pakistani gangster Shehzad Bhatti, with each notice following the arrest of an associate the man accused of running a network that targeted uniformed personnel in India.
Bhatti and his gang have targeted uniformed personnel as well as establishments of police and security agencies in recent months.
The Delhi Police’s Special Cell began a crackdown in October 2025 against his gang, and has arrested Bhatti’s associates in connection to arms trade, or planning terror activities of various scale.
“On prolonged interrogation of Bhatti’s associates who were arrested between October and November ‘25, we had identified a few social media profiles through which they had communicated,” said a senior officer aware of the matter.
Following that, the Delhi Police began flagging the profiles to Meta. Several of the profiles Bhatti used had “333” in its username. “Shehzadbhatti333, shehzad.bhatti.official333, originalshehzadbhatti333” are some of the profiles where content related to Bhatti can be found.
“Bhatti uses social media platform Instagram extensively to reach out to young men in India whom he wants to hire, so it became imperative to understand which all profiles are active,” said the officer.
According to police sources, there are several social media profiles that run under Bhatti’s name—some directly used by him, some are ‘fan’ accounts used by his “ardent followers” to upload videos that Bhati shares from his profiles.
“Bhatti actively lures young unemployed boys through Instagram and gives directions for criminal activities through groups and personal chats. There is incriminating evidence that investigation has found regarding targets being discussed over social media platforms,” said the officer.
So, once the police learn which profiles the arrested or detained associates of Bhatti communicate through, they immediately flag the profiles to ensure that more men are not lured.
The close monitoring of Bhatti’s activities came after his name came up frequently in terror-related cases in north India. The extensive nature of Bhatti’s module was on display on 12 August this year, when security agencies arrested more than 200 operatives linked to it. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that raids conducted by agencies led to 253 detentions across 14 states.
The Home Ministry has also proposed his designation as a “terrorist” considering his growing footprint and involvement in several terror acts across the country.
According to sources, Bhatti used to lure men from all religions by showing off his wealth, his swagger as a don and by the promise of a life abroad.
“Most of his associates are not people with criminal history. The network has individuals—from MBA degree-holders from foreign universities to labourers, carpenters, delivery boys and the completely uneducated—willing to carry out tasks for as little as Rs 10,000–15,000,” one of the sources said.
When ThePrint tried to see one of Bhatti’s profiles, it turned out that several of them had been taken down by the platform on “legal request”.
“This account is not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content,” read a message on his account on Instagram
As per a recent development, the Meta has integrated its platforms -Facebook and Instagram, with the Sahyog Portal. The Sahyog Portal is an Indian government platform developed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) to coordinate content take down requests under section 79 (3) (b) of the IT Act.
According to sources, this API integration allows authorised law enforcement and government agencies to issue automated, real time blocking directions without any individual human review by Meta.
However, despite such attempts, Bhatti has continued to hire and engage with his associates through social media platforms. “Despite continuously tracking his activities online, and taking down his profiles in India, several users – either associates or yet to be hired men continue to engage with him by using VPN,” said the officer.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: Between two Punjabs, via Portugal and Brazil: How Shehzad Bhatti’s ‘low-cost’ terror network works