Bulli Bai App Case: Engineering Student Sent To Mumbai Police's Custody Till January 10

The Court of Metropolitan Magistrate in Mumbai's Bandra has remanded Vishal Jha, the 21-year-old engineering student arrested in the Bulli Bai App case, in Mumbai cyber police's custody till January 10, 2022.The FIR was registered against relevant handles and the developer of Bulli Bai for offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity on grounds of religion etc), 153B (imputations prejudicial to nationallyntegration), 295A (insulting religious beliefs), 354D (stalking), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 500 (criminal defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of Information Technology Act. The court has also granted the police permission to search his residence in Bangalore to collect evidence. The case pertains to several politically vocal Muslim women being put up for "auction" on a mobile application. Advocate D Prajapati appeared for Jha and said that he had been falsely implicated in the case. Journalists were not allowed entry inside court owing to Covid-19 protocols. A cyber police team led by DCP Rashmi Karandikar led the operation of Jha's arrest. The police has also detained a woman from Uttarakhand in connection with the case. She is alleged to be the main accused. The case came to the fore after innumerable prominent Muslim women found themselves up for auction on the App hosted by GitHub. Many women found that their doctored images were put up on the App for "auction." The women included prominent journalists, social activists and lawyers. According to an NDTV report, the lady was handling three accounts in the Bulli Bai App. Jha opened an account called Khalsa Supremacist, apparently to make it look like this was a Khalistani attack. Then, on December 31, he changed the names of the accounts to make them sound like they allegedly belonged to a particular community. The Bulli Bai App is similar to the 'Sulli Deals' which also resulted in a controversy last year by offering 'sullis', a derogatory word trolls would use for Muslim women. GitHub was also the host for that App.

Bulli Bai App Case: Engineering Student Sent To Mumbai Police's Custody Till January 10

Sharmeen Hakim

The court granted permission to search his residence in Bangalore to collect evidence.

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