Following complaints of lewd content, the github based app called ‘Bulli Bai’was blocked a day after its launch on January 1.
The app was intended to embarrass and insult Muslim women by posting pictures of Muslim women – including journalists with a strong presence on social media platforms.
One such woman working with a news portal alleged that her picture was displayed improperly, inacceptable and clearly in a lewd context.
Today morning, the Mumbai police arrested two persons – primary accused being a women who has been detained from Uttarakhand and co-accused bengaluru-based engineering student Vishal Kumar, originally from Bihar, in connection with the controversial ‘Bulli Bai’ case.
Reportedly, Kumar opened an account by the name Khalsa supremacist and also changed the names of other accounts resembling Sikh names. While the main accused handled these accounts related to ‘Bulli Bai’ app.
21-year-old Kumar, a resident of Kumaraswamy Layout, was summoned for questioning on Monday evening to Mumbai for allegedly targeting and portraying prominent Muslim women in a highly derogatory manner on a now-defunct website.
Kumar was arrested under Sections 153 (wantonly provoking with intent to cause riot), 509 (insulting modesty of a woman), 354 (assault or use of criminal force to any woman with intention to outrage modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.
On Tuesday morning, Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant stated to the media that the city police had no knowledge of any arrest by Mumbai police in the Bulli Bai case.
On January 1, news of ‘Bulli Bai’, a clone of the ‘Sulli Deals’ app that had surfaced in July 2021 portraying prominent Muslim women in an objectionable manner, had spread on social media,.
The Mumbai Police action followed an FIR after a complaint was filed by one of the victims against the developers of the platform and those who shared it online. The Delhi Police after getting details from the ‘GitHub’ platform about the developer of the site, have asked Twitter to block and remove it.
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) – the country’s nodal agency to monitor and combat cyber security threats – is coordinating with police teams in the investigation.
