Indian Police Detain Engineering Student in 'Online Sale' of Muslim Women Case

On 1 January, photos of more than a hundred Indian Muslim women went viral on an open-source app -- “Bulli Bai”, hosted on the web platform GitHub. The photographs were sourced without the individuals' permission, in apparent attempt to target and harass Muslim women.

Mumbai Police in India's Maharashtra state on Monday night detained a 21-year-old engineering student from Bengaluru, a city in Karnataka state, in connection with an app where more than 100 Muslim women were listed for 'online auction’.

The arrest of the student, details about whom the police haven't revealed so far, became the first one in the ongoing investigation.

Commenting on the case, Maharashtra State Minister Satej Patil promised all the victims that the culprits "will face the law very soon".

Update on #BulliBai case:@MumbaiPolice has got a breakthrough.Though we cannot disclose the details at this moment as it may hamper the ongoing investigation, I would like to assure all the victims that we are proactively chasing the culprits & they will face the law very soon.

— Satej (Bunty) D. Patil (@satejp) January 3, 2022

On Saturday, several high-profile Indian Muslim women took to Twitter, highlighting how their photos were being used on the 'Bulli Bai' app.

The app, which is said to be auctioning photos of multiple Muslim women, was taken down on Saturday following the public outrage on social media.

Bulli Bai appears to be a clone of a similar app — Sulli deals. In July, photos of dozens of Muslim women were uploaded to ‘Sulli deals’, where they were auctioned as “deal of the day”.

"Sulli" and "Bulli" are derogatory words used by some Hindus to describe Muslim women.

Although police complaints were filed in the Sulli deals case too, no arrest has been made.

So far, police complaints over the Bulli Bai app have been filed in three different states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana and the Union Territory of Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Commission for Women, an autonomous Delhi government organisation for women, wrote to the Delhi Police asking why no accused person had been arrested in the “Sulli Deals” matter.

The women’s commission described the lack of action as “a callous attitude of the law enforcement agency”.