By solving the “Bulli Bai”case that had caused a lot of outrage and anger among Muslim women all over the country, the Mumbai police have proved that they are more professional than their Delhi, UP, and West Bengal counterparts. This also has demonstrated that the Mumbai police were not influenced by the political leanings of the parties in power.
Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—The Mumbai police have cracked the “Bulli Bai” app case by arresting four accused persons involved in the crime. In contrast, Delhi, NOIDA, and Kolkata police have badly failed to investigate the “Sulli Deals” app case that was registered with them six months ago.
By solving the crime that had caused a lot of outrage and anger among Muslim women all over the country, the Mumbai police have proved that they are more professional than their Delhi, UP, and West Bengal counterparts. This also has demonstrated that the Mumbai police were not influenced by the political leanings of the parties in power.
Suppose Mumbai police could crack a case by using digital and forensic investigations. In that case, there is nothing that prevented the Delhi police and investigating agencies of UP and West Bengal from solving the mystery behind the “Sulli Deals” app case by using the same investigating techniques. This speaks a lot about the lack of seriousness about the Delhi police in “Sulli Deals”case.
The accused in both the incidents of cybercrime used apps hosted on GitHub platform to upload photographs of Muslim women for online auction and then circulated them on social media. Delhi police say that it wrote to GitHub in the US to share the identity of the app owners who hosted it on GitHub, but its request was rejected. The Delhi police said that it was not possible to reach up to the accused persons without GitHub sharing the identity of the app users. This appears to be a weak defence of the Delhi police for its failure and incompetency because the Mumbai police cracked the case and arrested the accused without help from GitHub.
In both cases, dozens of Muslim women were subjected to harassment and trauma as the accused, through apps, tried to make an online auction and sale of the women. The accused in both cases used abusive language for Muslim women, individually and collectively, resulting in mental trauma.
Who are the accused in the “Bulli Bai” app case
Police have so far arrested four persons in the case.
1. One of them is Niraj Bishnoi, who hails from Jorhat in Assam. But he studies as a second-year student at the Vellore Institute of Technology at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Police claim he is the chief conspirator. And it is Bishnoi who created the “Bulli Bai” app on the GitHub platform. He is also the primary Twitter account holder of “Bulli Bai”. He was arrested by the Intelligence Fusions and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell on Jaunary 6.
2. The other accused arrested by the Mumbai police is a 19-year-old Shweta Singh. She is said to be the number two mastermind behind the case. The police investigations so far revealed that she was indulging in the crime for monetary purposes as her father had expired, and there was no source of income for the family. But this needs to be investigated in-depth to find out who were the people behind misusing a young girl. Are the people behind the crime linked with some radical organizations, as happened in the case of serial bomb blasts in Gujarat and other places in which right-wing leaders from MP, Rajasthan, and Mumbai, and an Indian Army official were found to be involved.
Shweta is originally from Bulandshahar in Western Uttar Pradesh, but her family is settled in Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand. Her father worked with a company in manufacturing equipment related to solar energy generation.
Shweta, who lost her father to Covid-19 last, has two sisters and a younger brother. She lost her mother to cancer in 2011. Media reports say that her family gets Rs. 3,000 per month from the Vatsalya Yojana for Covid orphans in Uttarakhand. According to the police, her family gets Rs. 10,000 per month from the manufacturing unit where her father worked.
However, the police need to investigate if Rs. 10,000 is coming to Shweta’s family from the employer of her late father or some hate-peddling groups were paying it for using Shweta’s service to spread hate against Muslims.
Police investigators said that she had been very active on social media, posting extreme anti-Muslim content for a long time. However, she intensified it particularly on Twitter after her father’s death and procured a SIM card using her father’s identity.
Initial investigations by the police found that she had created a fake account on instructions from a friend in Nepal. This indicates that an international organized crime racket spread hatred against Muslims and their women in India.
Shweta’s Nepal Connection
Shweta is reported to have acted at the instructions of a Twitter user, ‘Giyou’ based in Nepal. In a tweet after the arrest of Shweta, the Nepal Twitter user, who goes by the handle @giyu44, said, “You have arrested the wrong person, Mumbai police. I am the creator of #BulliBaiApp. Got nothing to do with the two innocents whom you arrested, release them asap.”
However, this tweet from someone based in Nepal could be a ploy to divert the attention from the real culprits. This needs investigation. But one thing that has become clear is that the crime targeting Muslim women has an international dimension, and police should leave no stone unturned to dig out the main culprits behind it.
3. Vishal Kumar Jha was arrested from Bengaluru. He is a second-year civil engineering student in a well-known college in Bengaluru. His family members told the Mumbai police that he wanted to join Indian Engineering Service (IES). His father is a class II railways officer.
According to police, Jha followed instructions from some persons and used to post derogatory content against Muslim women from Bullibai App. He used multiple Twitter handles. He was in touch with other accused persons through Whatsapp and Instagram. He also had an account on GitHub where he followed the Bulli Bai app.
The police said Jha operated six Twitter accounts, two Instagram accounts, and seven Gmail accounts. Jha also had a Youtube account which he used once to upload a video of the Babri Masjid demolition. All these things indicate the level of his radicalism. However, if an in-depth investigation is done, the police can reach the people behind the hate campaign against Muslim women.
4. Another conspirator arrested is Mayank Rawat (21) from Uttarakhand. He is the son of Army subedar Pradeep Rawat and studying Chemistry honours from Zakir Hussain College affiliated to Delhi University. He said that he joined the group and shared the photos after receiving a link on his Twitter handle on December 31.
Sikh connection used in “Bulli Bai” to divert attention
Police investigations have revealed that Twitter handles with Sikh names were used to share photos from the Bulli Bai app to mislead the people about their identity. The Twitter handles with Sikh names that were used by the accused included @Sikh_khalsa11, @jatkhalsa, @jatkhalsa7, etc. According to Mumbai police, the status of the Bulli Bai linked to the app says Bulli Bai is a community-driven open-source app by Khalsa Sikh Force. The Mumbai police are now investigating why the accused used an alias on the status of the Twitter handle.
What does the “Bulli Bai” FIR with Mumbai police say?
According to an FIR filed with the Mumbai Police, the accused had uploaded doctored photographs of over 100 prominent Muslim women for their online ” auction” on the ” Bulli Bai” app, hosted on software platform GitHub. The Mumbai police also registered cases against the app’s unidentified developers, and Twitter handles that promoted it. Within a few days, Mumbai police cracked the case.
No progress in the “Sulli Deals” app case lodged with Delhi, NOIDA, and Kolkata police
Contrast it with Delhi, UP, and Kolkata police. Muslim women victims registered an FIR in July 2021 in Delhi, NOIDA, and Kolkata about putting up scores of Muslim women on sale at the “Sulli Deals” app, also hosted on GitHub based in the United States.
However, the police in the three states have not been able to make any progress on the ” Sulli Deals” app case. They failed to arrest any of the accused involved in the case. Even the Delhi Police, under Union Home Minister Amit Shah, proved a total failure in cracking the case. The Delhi Police is considered one of the most professional police forces in the country.
The Delhi police, when questioned, told media persons that they approached GitHub to get information about the people who created the application but the US-based company refused to provide it. According to an advocate, the Delhi police should have asked for the details from GitHub through a legal procedure under a treaty between India and the United States on “Mutual Legal Assistance” in criminal matters. However, the Delhi police approached GitHub under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which GitHub rejected.
But the question arises: If the Mumbai police can crack the cases digitally and arrest the accused involved in the ” Bulli Bai” app case, why could the Delhi police not crack the “Sulli Deals” case and arrest the accused? The NOIDA and Kolkata police could have also cracked the “Sulli Deals” app case as the Mumbai police did in the “Bulli Bai” case. The failure of the Delhi, NOIDA, and Kolkata police indicates a lack of seriousness, or acting against the accused involved in the online auctioning bid of Muslim women is not their priority.
The police fail to register the “Sulli Deal” case as Hate Crime
While NOIDA police filed the FIR under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code about “insulting modesty of a woman” and 66 and 67 of the Information Technology Act on charges of transferring obscene material based on the complaint of a woman commercial pilot, the Delhi police filed the FIR under Section 354-A IPC about sexual harassment.
Human rights activists say that the police should have added Sections 153-A, 295-A, and 298 to classify the case as a hate crime against women members of a particular community.
But the police avoided levelling charges of hate crimes against the accused even though the entire offense was based on hate against Muslim women. Should it be construed as police showing sympathy with the accused persons yet to be identified and arrested? A question arises: Would the police have been so lackadaisical and lazy in investigating the case had the victims been Hindu women?
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