Following the arrest of the four accused in the ‘Bulli Bai’ App case, one of the complainants in the case approached the Mumbai Police Cyber Cell and reported receiving threatening calls. A case has been registered, and further investigation is underway, confirmed Mumbai Police to The Quint.
Police further added that the victim feared that her number had been publicly shared in an attempt to harass and intimidate her. She has filed a non-cognisable case against the unknown persons, connected to the matter.
Recently, on January 1, nearly 112 Muslim women found themselves listed on a fake online auction including actor Shabana Azmi, along with several journalists such as Ismat Ara, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Fatima Khan and Kashmir-based journalist Quratulain Rehbar. Author Saba Naqvi, poet Nabiya Khan, RJ Sayema, Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, activist Khalida Parveen, and several other female, Muslim activists who frequently voice their opinions on social media, were also listed.
The ‘Bulli Bai’ App hosted by the GitHub platform uploaded pictures of Muslim women as part of a fake ‘online auction’ along with the caption ‘Bulli of the day’ and their respective Twitter handles.
Both Delhi and Mumbai police arrested four people related to the case in the past week- 18-year-old Shweta Singh from Uttarakhand, 21-year-old engineering student Vishal Kumar Jha from Bangalore, 21-year-old Mayank Rawat, a student of B.Sc Chemistry at Delhi University’s Zakir Hussain College, and 20-year-old Neeraj Bishnoi, a student of B.Tech from Vellore Institute of Technology in Bhopal, alleged to be the main creator and conspirator behind the ‘Bulli Bai’ App.
Recommended
Jha, who was the first one to be arrested in connection to the case, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Mumbai police informed the court. Following which, he has been sent into judicial custody until January 24 as he was admitted to a Covid Centre, as per a report by the Hindustan Times. He has applied for bail in a Mumbai Metropolitan Magistrate court and the court has scheduled a hearing for the matter, on Thursday.
Jha has applied for bail, based on grounds that the prosecution has failed to produce concrete evidence supporting the allegations made against him in the case. Even after submitting his laptop, mobile phone, and SIM cards to the investigating agency, he has claimed that he is not in a position to tamper with any evidence.