Delhi Police Arrests 21-Yr-Old Bulli Bai 'Mastermind' Niraj Bishnoi in Assam

The arrest was made by Delhi Police's Special Cell, confirmed DCP (IFSO) KPS Malhotra.

(Photo: PTI)

Photos of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded by an unidentified group on an app named 'Bulli Bai' using GitHub.

Reporter: Somya Lakhani

Video Producer: Shohini Bose

Video Editor: Vivek Gupta

The Delhi Police on Thursday, 6 January, confirmed the arrest of a 21-year-old man from Assam, who is allegedly the mastermind behind the 'Bulli Bai' app. The accused has been identified as Niraj Bishnoi.

The arrest was made by Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations Unit (IFSO), its DCP KPS Malhotra confirmed to The Quint.

"Niraj Bishnoi is the character who made the Bulli Bai app on GitHub. He is also the person who was using a Twitter handle under the same name. He sent the app to social media propagators. But he is the mastermind and creator behind the app. We have found the evidence from his phone and laptop."

KPS Malhotra, DCP, IFSO

Stating that with Bishnoi's arrest, "the controversial Bulli Bai app case has been solved completely," the DCP further said:

“He (Bishnoi) was continuously monitoring the news on social media. He had created one more twitter account with the name of @giyu44 and had tweeted: 'You have arrested the wrong person, slumbai police [sic].”

The police also claimed that during the investigation, Bishnoi disclosed that the Github account was developed in November and updated in December 2021.

Bishnoi will be produced before a Delhi court, later in the day.

Who Is Niraj Bishnoi?

File photo of Niraj Bishnoi.

(Photo accessed by The Quint)

Bishnoi is the fourth accused to be held in the case. He hails from Jorhat in Assam and is a second-year BTech (Computer Science) student of Vellore Institute of Technology, Bhopal.

"He hasn't come to the campus after he took admission in 2020. He was attending online classes and gave online exams. We got the information about his arrest from the media and after shuffling through our records we found his credentials to be true," Amit Amar, PRO, VIT-Bhopal told The Quint.

According to Assam Police SP Ankur Jain, Bishnoi came to Jorhat from Bhopal on 25 December. He was arrested by the Assam Police late on 5 January, and was handed over to Delhi Police on 6 January.

This is the first arrest made by the Delhi Police in the case, after an FIR was filed in the case on 2 January.

Photos of hundreds of Muslim women were misused on the 'Bulli Bai' app, which became public on 1 January.

Earlier in the week, the Mumbai Police arrested three accused – two from Uttarakhand and one from Bengaluru – in connection with the Bulli Bai case.