‘Bulli Bai’ app case: Key accused woman among two held

Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Cyber Cell arrested one youth and detained a woman in connection with the ‘Bulli Bai’ app case.

Mumbai Police official sources said the woman is the key conspirator in the case and has been detained from Uttarakhand earlier today.

The accused woman was handling three Twitter accounts related to ‘Bulli Bai’ app, the police official sources informed.

Yesterday, the Mumbai Police Cyber Cell detained Vishal Kumar, a 21-year-old engineering student from Bengaluru and later arrested him after questioning.

The police official sources further stated both the accused know each other. Kumar, the co-accused opened an Twitter account by the name Khalsa Supremacist.

On December 31, he changed the names of other Twitter accounts to resemble Sikh names. Moreover, fake Khalsa account holders of were shown in the app.

The controversy, which cropped on January 1, saw Bulli Bai app, on hosting platform Github, post the photos of a number of women of a particular religion including of journalists, social workers, students and famous personalities.

This came six months after the “Sulli Deals” controversy.

Both names are derogatory terms for women of the particular religion.

The arrested student was one of the followers of ‘Bulli Bai’ which led the police to him.
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 app was also being promoted by a twitter handle with the name @bullibai, with the display picture was of a Khalistani supporter.

This twitter handle was endorsing the ‘Bulli Bai’ app saying the women can be booked from the app. This handle was also promoting Khalistani content at the same time.

Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote to Mumbai Police after which the case was lodged.

A case in this connection was also lodged by Delhi Police.

When ‘Sulli Deal’ controversy came up appeared, two FIRs were lodged against unknown persons, but the culprits behind it were never traced or arrested.

(With agency inputs)