Delhi Police File Chargesheets In ‘Sulli Deals’ & ‘Bulli Bai’ Cases, Call Them ‘Illegal, Inhuman’

The Delhi police has filed chargesheets in the ‘Sulli Deals’ and ‘Bulli Bai’ cases, in which Muslim women were listed online for ‘auction’ on an app. The chargesheet states that the accused “targeted girls from various communities”, “defamed Muslim women”, and “intended to create disharmony”.

Photos of hundreds of Muslim women were listed online for ‘auction’ on apps called ‘Sulli Deals’ and ‘Bulli Bai’. The women listed, include journalists, writers and activists, vocal on social media and elsewhere against the atrocities on Muslims in the country.

Niraj Bishnoi, a 20-year-old, developed the ‘Bulli Bai’ app, and Aumkareshwar Thakur, 25, created ‘Sulli Deals’. Both the accused were arrested by the Delhi police on January 6 & 8. The chargesheet was filed on March 4 by the Delhi police’s cyber cell unit CyPAD in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court. 

The charge sheet states that the accused “targeted girls from various communities,” “defamed Muslim women”, and “intended to create disharmony.”

Bishnoi, a second-year B.tech student, was arrested in Jorhat, Assam and was booked under sections 153A (promoting The Enmity between different groups based on religion, race), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 354A (sexual harassment), 509 (word or action to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as well as sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

He was found to have uploaded as many as 102 photos of Muslim women on the app in a bid to defame them. Referring to Bishnoi, the chargesheet said: “The app created by him is not only illegal but also inhuman as it targeted girls from various communities.”

But in the case of Aumkareshwar Thakur, the police is yet to receive the forensic report of the gadgets he used, as he deleted all the evidence from the devices he used for auctioning Muslim women. 

Thakur was booked over intending to defame Muslim women under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups based on religion, race), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and areas of the IT Act.