New Delhi: Even as the Delhi Police made little headway in the probe related to the SulliDeals application — where prominent Muslim women were "auctioned off" — within months of this case surfacing, the Delhi Police now have another identical case on their hands, this time circulated under the name "BulliBai" — which targetted over 100 prominent Muslim women, including journalists, activists and politicians.
The most recent case was registered late on Saturday night after one of the victims, a well-known journalist with an online news portal filed a police complaint seeking an FIR at the South-East district cyber crime police station. But even as several Twitter handles propagating the application were outed on social media, the Delhi Police FIR is against unknown individuals.
A senior police officer said the case has been registered under sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 354 A (sexual harassment and punishment for harassment) of the Indian Penal Code on the complaint of the journalist alleging that she is being targeted by an unidentified group of people on "Bulli Bai" portal.
The police said no arrests have been made in the case so far and a probe is underway.
Significantly, this application was also found to be hosted on GitHub — the same platform that had hosted the SulliDeals application months ago. The police have made little headway in the SulliDeals case so far and are yet to make any arrests in the case either.
In fact, according to the police they are yet to receive information on the IP address with which the initial application was made and hosted.
According to the journalist's complaint, the woman sought immediate registration of an FIR and investigation against an unknown set of people who are "seeking to harass and insult Muslim women" on social media.
"I was shocked to find out this morning that a website/portal called bullibai.github.io (since deleted) had a doctored picture of me in an improper, unacceptable and clearly lewd context. This needs immediate action, as the same is clearly designed to harass me and other similarly situated independent women and journalists," the woman said in the complaint.
"I enclose snapshots of the said tweet directed at me herein as well as of other tweets. The term 'Bulli Bai' itself seems disrespectful and the content of this website/portal (bullibai.github.io) is clearly aimed at insulting Muslim women as the derogatory term 'Bulli' is used exclusively for Muslim women and the entire website seems to have been designed with the intent of embarrassing and insulting Muslim women," she added.
Responding on Twitter, the Delhi Police said taking cognizance of the matter, officials concerned have been directed to take appropriate action.
Earlier in July, a case was registered by the Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police after it received a complaint about an unidentified group uploading photos of Muslim women on an app.
Delhi Police PRO Chinmoy Biswal had said, "Acting on a complaint received on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal regarding 'Sulli Deals' mobile application, a case under section 354-A of the Indian Penal Code has been registered on Wednesday and investigation taken up."