Main accused in Bulli Bai case claims he "did the right thing"

New Delhi: The 21-year-old Btech student from Assam arrested in connection with the creation of the 'Bulli Bai' app that aimed to demean and humiliate Muslim women says he has "no remorse" and is confident that he did the right thing, a day after his arrest according to police reports.

Neeraj Bishnoi was tracked down and arrested after surveillance of Twitter handles he created to popularise the Bulli Bai app were investigated. One of those handles dubbed @giyu44 was aimed at taunting the Mumbai Police, which was referred to as "Slumbai Police" in a series of tweets that tainted investigators.

Sources said that interrogation so far had revealed the app was actually developed in November and it went public on December 31, at which time another Twitter handle - @sage0x1 was created to spread the word. The app has now been deleted from the hosting platform GitHub which had initially blocked it.

During the raid at the residence of Bishnoi, the police recovered the device on which the app was allegedly created, officials told NDTV.

"We had heard about the Bulli Bai app online. On Wednesday, we were contacted by a police team from Delhi, led by the DCP after they reached Assam. They said they are searching for Neeraj Bishnoi and sought our help. We were only given an IP address. After locating Bishnoi, we went with the Delhi police team to arrest him," Ankur Jain, Jorhat Superintendent of Police, told NDTV.

The Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Bhopal, has suspended second-year engineering student Neeraj Bishnoi from the University with immediate effect until further notice, reported news agency ANI.

Police have asserted that the mastermind behind the creation of the app is 18-year-old Shweta Singh, who was arrested on Wednesday, along with Mayank Rawal, 21; and Vishal Kumar Jha. Police have also reported another influence, a Nepali man named Giyou, who was the one giving Shweta instructions as per investigation reports.

Shweta was well-known for posting extremist content online, which intensified after the death of her father due to Covid-19 earlier in 2021. According to police, the woman was arrested from Uttarakhand where she was studying to join an engineering degree.

The Bulli Bai app is a copycat of 'Sulli Deals' which was released last year. Both apps featured the photos and details of prominent Muslim women journalists and activists, putting them up "for sale" in a mock online auction that was intended to humiliate and degrade the women. Vishal Kumar Jha, who exposed Shweta's link to the app, was in charge of editing and uploading photos of women, an India Today report said.

"It is very sad that as a Muslim woman, you have to start your New Year with this sense of fear and disgust. Of course, it goes without saying that I am not the only one being targeted in this new version of 'sulli' deals," Ismat Ara, a journalist whose photo and details were uploaded on the app, tweeted when the news broke.