New Delhi, Jan 5, (dpa/GNA) – Three people have been arrested in India for alleged ties to an app that prompted complaints because it disparaged Muslim women, by sharing images of more than 100 of them for a fake online “auction,” police said on Wednesday.
Three people were arrested, entailing two 21-year-old men and a 19-year-old woman in the state of Uttarkhand, and in the city of Bengaluru, the country’s information technology hub, Mumbai Police commissioner Hemant Nagrale said at a press briefing.
“The photographs of several women who are well-established and well-regarded in the community were uploaded on the Bulli Bai app and Twitter account with objectionable messages,” Nagrale said.
“We began the investigation on January 2, a day after one of the women targeted by the app lodged a complaint with us.” Nagrale said he could not share more details as the matter was sensitive.
The Bulli Bai app appeared on the GitHub open source software development platform on Saturday, but was taken down hours later.
Indian Information and Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said the platform had blocked the user and an emergency response team from his ministry was coordinating with the police on further action.
Several prominent Muslim women including journalists, a pilot and a politician, were among the 100-plus women who found their photos on the website alongside degrading text that implied they were for sale, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
Six months earlier, a similar website called Sulli Deals, also on GitHub, had included photographs and profiles of more than 80 Muslim women.
GNA