President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi said on Thursday that he had received a threat over Twitter from the Islamic State, asking him to stop speaking against the militant group. “It’s better for you to shut your mouth on the Islamic State if you don’t know the truth, Islamic State will invade India soon (sic),” a user who went by the name Abu Talout al-Khorasani tweeted to Owaisi. While The Times of India reported that al-Khorasani was an IS sympathiser, Zee News claimed the account was managed by IS. The user with the Twitter handle @abotalout also called Owaisi a “disgrace for Muslims of India.”

The Muslim leader responded to the tweets and said, “Sir you are a bloody Takfiri if you want to debate on Evil ISIS I am ready you will not be able to counter my Theological Points (sic).” Takfiri is someone who accuses any Muslim of straying from Islam. Terror outfits, including the IS, use this ideology to target opponents.

Owaisi has not filed a police complaint over the tweets. “I am not sure if they are ISIS sympathisers or IS militants, but I am not bothered by the threat. I get hundreds [of] such threats every day,” he said. Owaisi also told The Times of India he was confident security agencies would identify the user and take action. “Anything on Twitter is in the public domain. It will surely be noticed. Anybody with affiliations to banned organisations will attract the attention of the authorities,” he said.

The Hyderabad MP had earlier declared ISIS “rebels of Islam” and said that they had no right to speak about the religion. Speaking to The Indian Express about the influence of the IS in India, Owaisi had called the group an “evil, draconian force” and said, “ISIS is a threat. I just want everyone to realise this...If you pick up Urdu papers from the last two years, [you’ll find that] scholars and leaders, including me, have been criticising, condemning the activities of ISIS. It has nothing to do with Islam.”