Court Says Bulli Bai a 'Vilification Campaign,' Denies Bail to Niraj Bishnoi

Photos of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded by on an app by the name of 'Bulli Bai', using GitHub.

Niraj Bishnoi, 21, was arrested by Delhi Police from his residence in Assam's Jorhat on 5 January 2022, and is allegedly the 'main conspirator' of the Bulli Bai app. 

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Denying bail to Bulli Bai case accused Niraj Bishnoi, a Delhi court on Friday, 14 January, noted that "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."

On 1 January, photos of several Muslim women were uploaded on an app by the name 'Bulli Bai' on GitHub. Bishnoi, 21, allegedly the "main conspirator" of the Bulli Bai app, was arrested from his house in Assam’s Jorhat by the Delhi Police on 5 January.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Patiala House Court Pankaj Sharma noted in his order on Friday:

"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."

Denying bail to the accused, the Court noted that the investigation of the case is at an initial stage, and that the police is still in the process of collecting evidence.

"The investigation of this case is at initial stage and police is in process of collecting evidence and identifying involvement of other persons involved in this disdainful act. Accordingly, considering the enormity of allegation and the stage of investigation, no ground is made out for grant of bail at this stage. Bail denied."

Previously, the police had said that they were analysing deleted data on Bishnoi's laptop to probe the extent of his involvement with the Sulli Deals app, a similar app on GitHub that was created to "auction off" Muslim women in July 2021.

The police had said that during the interrogation, it came to the fore that "Bishnoi is habitual of hacking and has been defacing websites since he was 15-years-old."