The 21-year-old engineering student, Vishal Kumar, an accused in the ‘Bulli Bai’ app case, has been sent to police custody by Bandra Court till January 10. He was detained from Bengaluru by Mumbai police on Monday and was later brought to Mumbai.
Vishal Kumar’s lawyer, Advocate D Prajapati addressing the media said that his client is falsely implicated in this case. “My client has been sent to police custody till January 10. My client is falsely implicated in this case. Police had filed an application to obtain a search warrant,” the lawyer said.
A woman from Uttarakhand has also been detained by the Mumbai Cyber cell Police in connection with the case. Police say that she is the main accused.
As per the police, the accused know each other. “The main accused woman was handling three accounts related to ‘Bulli Bai’ app. Co-accused Vishal Kumar opened an account by the name Khalsa supremacist. On Dec 31, he changed the names of other accounts to resemble Sikh names. Fake Khalsa account holders were shown,” ANI quoted Mumbai Police.
The controversy, which cropped on January 1, saw Bulli Bai app, on hosting platform Github, post the photos of a number of Muslim women including journalists, social workers, students and famous personalities. This came six months after the “Sulli Deals” controversy. Both names are derogatory terms for Muslim women.
The app was also being promoted by a Twitter handle with the name @bullibai, with the display picture was of a Khalistani supporter. Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote to Mumbai Police after which the case was lodged.
Github had provided space to Sulli Deals and this time too, the offending app was created on the platform. After the controversy, Github had removed the user from its hosting platform.
But by then, Bulli Bai had sparked a nationwide controversy.
The Delhi Police also registered an FIR against unknown people involved in harassing and insulting women of the minority community on social media.
The FIR was registered after a Delhi-based woman journalist Ismat Ara lodged a complaint stating that she was being targeted by some unidentified group of people on a mobile application named ‘Bulli Bai’ created on the GitHub platform. After the controversy, Github had removed the user from its hosting platform.
Hyderabad cyber crime police have also registered a case in the ‘Bulli Bai’ app row on the complaint of activist Khalida Parveen, who is among the Muslim women “auctioned” on the app.
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