Mumbai Police has detained a 21-year-old Bengaluru man in connection with the ‘Bulli Bai‘ case – a GitHub app targeting hundreds of Muslim women.
The 21-year old engineer student was detained from Bengaluru and would be produced before a court on Tuesday.
The case was registered under Sections 354-D (stalking of women), 500 (punishment for defamation), and other Sections of the Information Technology Act.
Mumbai Police has not revealed the identity of the suspect detained from Bengaluru yet, except for his age, ANI news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra minister Satej D Patil claimed Mumbai Police has got a breakthrough in the ‘Bulli Bai’ app case. Can’t disclose details as it may hamper probe, he adds.
The case was being investigated by DCP Rashmi Karandikar
The detention comes two days after the Mumbai Cyber Police registered an FIR against unknown persons and Twitter handles that promoted the ‘Bulli Bai’ application.
Nearly six months after the ‘Sulli Deals‘ where photographs of more than 80 Muslim women put up for sale by right-wing Hindu men, asserting anti-Muslim hatred and selective sexism, photos of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded by an unidentified group on an app using GitHub – by the name of ‘Bulli Bai’ – on Saturday.
Last time, no police action has been taken against perpetrators in the case, despite two FIRs filed – one in Delhi and another in Uttar Pradesh and more than a dozen complaints were written to several police stations in the country.
“I woke up in the morning with the thought of starting my day with a new report, but when I opened my Twitter notifications, I saw my name being retweeted; I was one of the women tagged as ‘Bulli Bai, deal of the day’,” journalist Arshi Qureshi told Maktoob.
She went on to say: “My hands went numb for few minutes. I couldn’t process it at all. I felt humiliated, scared. All I could think was– is this country for women? They claim to worship women, respect them, and vocal Muslim women are being targeted this way? Are they so insecure because they are threatened by us?”
Arshi further said that those bigots were able to target the Muslim women again because no action was taken against them the first time.
“This deliberate sexualisation has been done to satisfy their own inferiority complex,” Arshi says.
“It is very sad that as a Muslim woman you have to start your new year with this sense of fear & disgust. Of course it goes without saying that I am not the only one being targeted in this new version of #sullideals. Screenshot sent by a friend this morning,” tweeted The Wire journalist Ismat Ara, who is one of the women named in the app.
Responding to Ismat’s tweet, Delhi Police said that the matter has been taken cognizance of. “Concerned officials have been directed to take appropriate action,” read tweet by Delhi Police.
