‘Bulli Bai’ Controversy: App That ‘Auctions’ Muslim Women Pics

‘Bulli Bai’ app was reportedly found auctioning pictures of Muslim women, just months after ‘Sulli deals’, another app where some unidentified persons uploaded and auctioned hundreds of Muslim women. This latest controversial app created on a repository hosting service has triggered outrage on social media after photos of Muslim women were uploaded on it without their consent. It has surfaced on January 1, 2022, on Github, a platform for developing and hosting software using Git.

How Did The App ‘Bulli Bai’ Reached Attention?

Last weekend, a woman journalist shared an image of her being sold on the Bulli Bai app as ‘deal of the day’. Taking to Twitter, the journalist said it was “very sad that as a Muslim woman you have to start your new year with this sense of fear & disgust.” Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Twitter that to sell someone online is cybercrime and he shall call on the police to take immediate action. “The perpetrators deserve exemplary & condign punishment,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said she has repeatedly asked the Union information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to take stern action against “rampant misogyny and communal targeting of women through #sullideals like platforms.” ‘A shame that it continues to be ignored,” she added. Today, Vaishnaw informed that GitHub has confirmed blocking the user and CERT. Police authorities are coordinating further action.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi’s Fight For Justice:

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the ‘Bulli Bai’ app is created now only as a result of our inadequate action against the creators of ‘Sulli Deals’ for allegedly uploading photos of women without their consent. “I had raised the issue of Sulli Deals, a website where women were being auctioned using their photographs, especially targeting a specific community; abusive language was being used, the women were being used as a ‘commodity’,” Ms Chaturvedi said.

Underlining the mental harassment women have to go through because of such applications, Ms Chaturvedi said, “I had complained about Sulli Deals to the IT minister, who later replied that the sites have been blocked. But blocking the sites is one way to go about it, the other is to take action against those who are making such sites.” “Due to lack of action then, we see another version of it has emerged in the form of Bulli Bai,” she added while hoping for a “logical conclusion” to the issue this time.

FIR Filed Under relevant Sections:

Both the Delhi and Mumbai Police lodged FIR in the matter under relevant sections. Delhi Police on Sunday said that an FIR has been registered under section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code in the Cyber Police station of South-East district after a woman journalist complained at the Cyber police station. She alleged that her photo was uploaded on a website to target her.

Mumbai Police has also filed a first information report (FIR) against unknown persons based on complaints that doctored photographs of women were uploaded for auction on ‘Bulli Bai’ application hosted by GitHub platform. On Sunday, West Mumbai Cyber Police station registered a case against the ‘Bulli Bai’ app developers and Twitter handles that promoted the app.

The case has been registered against the unknown culprits under sections 153(A) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion etc), 153(B) (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 295(A) (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), 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.

Suspect: A 21-year-Old Btech Student:

Mumbai Police Cyber Cell detained a 21-year-old engineering student from Bengaluru, in connection with the ‘Bulli Bai’ application case on Monday. The identity of the suspect has not been revealed and cops have registered a case against unknown culprits under relevant sections of IPC and the IT Act. The app is leaving several scared as on the first day of the year, several Muslim women woke up to a horrifying sight on social media – their photos appeared all over an illegal site meant to “auction” them to online bidders.