Bulli Bai Case: Mumbai Police Makes Another Arrest in Odisha

Neeraj Singh is the fifth person to be arrested in the case.

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

(Photo: The Quint)

The Mumbai Police on Thursday, 20 January, arrested one more person in connection with the Bulli Bai app case. Neeraj Singh from Odisha has been arrested by the cyber cell of the police, and is being brought to Mumbai.

Singh is the fifth person to be arrested in the case.

On 1 January, photos of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded on an app by the name of 'Bulli Bai' using GitHub. This came nearly six months after the 'Sulli Deals' controversy, wherein pictures of Muslim women were similarly misused.

Meanwhile, Mumbai's Bandra court dismissed the bail pleas of accused Vishal Kumar Jha, Shweta Singh, and Mayank Rawat. All the three accused are presently under judicial custody.

The 21-year-old Niraj Bishnoi, who is allegedly the mastermind behind the app, and 'Sulli Deals' app creator Omkareshwar Thakur, were also remanded to police custody till 27 January.

Earlier on 14 January, Bishnoi was denied bail by a Delhi court.

"A vilification campaign against these women containing derogatory content and offending material having communal overtones was run on this App being made by the accused," the court had observed, denying bail to Bishnoi.

"The facts disclose that accused created the App 'Bulli Bai' where women journalists and celebrities of a particular community who are famous on social media are targeted and they are projected in a bad light with an objective to insult and humiliate them by objectification," the court had stated in its order.

Bishnoi had been arrested from his house in Assam’s Jorhat by the Delhi Police on 5 January.