Bulli Bai accused posed as Sikh extremists to divert suspicion: Mumbai police

Vishal Kumar Jha in the custody of city cops

Even as the fake online auction of prominent Muslim women sparked outrage in the country as well as abroad, the Mumbai police moved swiftly to arrest a 21-year-old engineering student from Bengaluru and detain a Uttarakhand woman, who is said to be the mastermind in the ‘Bulli Bai' app case. Cops are on the lookout for another suspect behind the attack, made to look like a Sikh conspiracy.

The investigators are now searching for the third accused who is believed to be a friend of the Uttarakhand woman, who has been identified as Shweta Singh. Over 100 Muslim women had been targeted through the repulsive app, triggering massive uproar on social media. Sources from the Crime Branch said the arrested man, Vishal Kumar Jha, and Singh know each other. They are friends on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. This helped the city cops reach Singh after they tracked down Jha.

A screenshot from the highly offensive app

Sources in the Crime Branch told mid-day that the people, who perpetrated the crime through Bulli Bai hosted on GitHub, had portrayed themselves as the followers of Khalsa Sikh Front. Investigators are trying to ascertain if the perpetrators have any connection with Khalistani elements or it was just a ploy to misguide the police.

Sources said Singh operated three accounts tied to the app, while Jha had opened an account in the name of "Khalsa Supremacist". "The Crime Branch has taken the transit remand of the accused woman Shweta Singh by presenting her in a local court in Uttarakhand and is bringing her to Mumbai," a Crime Branch officer told mid-day yesterday.

City cops with Vishal Kumar Jha, an engineering student from Bengaluru, on Tuesday

Jha's lawyer D. Prajapati said, "My client has been sent to police custody till January 10. My client is falsely implicated in this case. Police had filed an application to obtain a search warrant." Bulli Bai is a clone of Sulli Deals which had stoked controversy last year. Though many FIRs were registered in Delhi, Noida and other places, there was no breakthrough in either of the cases.

The Cyber Cell of Mumbai police cracked the case within 24 hours. "Had the Delhi police solved the case last year, the crooks would not have dared to run another campaign to target prominent Muslim women on social media. No crooks can suppress the progressive voices of Muslim women," said Hasiba Amin, who had filed a complaint in Delhi last year.

An app called Sulli Deals had targeted Muslim women in a similar fashion last year

A commercial pilot Hana Mohsin Khan had also filed a case in Noida but no action was taken. After the Sulli Deals episode, a YouTube channel, Liberal Doge, went live by uploading photographs of women for an online "auction" that was live-streamed. Vulgar comments were made on the features of the woman whose photo was on live streaming.

Jan 10
Date till accused Jha will be in police custody

100
No. of Muslim women who were targeted through the app