[Bulli Bai App] What does 917-page chargesheet by Mumbai Police say?

The Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police has filed its first chargesheet against the six accused in the Bulli Bai case of 2021 in which a mobile application was created putting out details of Muslim women and allowing users of the application to participate in an 'auction'..The chargesheet running into 917 pages, was filed before the Metropolitan Magistrate at Bandra, Mumbai Komalsingh Rajput last week who took cognizance of the same..The case has its genesis in an app 'Bulli bai' which appeared on open source platform GitHub.The app put out details of more than 100 prominent Muslim women allowing users to participate in an 'auction' of those women.It triggered an outrage and based on complaints by women who had been targeted by the app, the cyber cell of Mumbai police registered a first information report (FIR) on January 1, 2022..The prosecution claimed that the app had been hosted on GitHub by accused Neeraj Bishnoi. It was also discovered that Bishnoi relied upon the source code of 'Sulli deals' an app created earlier by Aumkareshwar Akhilesh Thakur in order to make another app 'Bulli Deala'On December 31, 2021, the app link had been shared by the accused on their respective twitter handles as per instructions of Bishnoi. The Cyber Cell alleged that the accused targeted a majority of Muslim women who were particularly active on social media.They discovered that the accused had kept an eye on such accounts and used the photographs these women uploaded on their social media accounts without their consent for illegal and immoral online auctions.Such auctions were carried out on the 'Bulli bai app' as well as on Twitter where the accused portrayed themselves as belonging to Sikh community and targeted Muslim women in an attempt to create friction between two communities..The Cyber Cell have chargesheeted the following 6 accused in the case: Kumarvishal Sudhirkumar Jha (18 year old student arrested from Bangalore on January 4, 2022)Shweta Anantpal Singh (18 year old student arrested from Uttarakhand on January 4, 2022)Mayank Pradeep Singh Rawat (21 year old student arrested from Uttarakhand on January 5, 2022)Neeraj Dashrath Bishnoi (20 year old student arrested from Assam on January 20, 2022)Aumkareshwar Akhilesh Thakur (26 year old arrested from Madhya Pradesh on January 20, 2022)Nirajkumar Nunava Singh (28 year old arrested from Odisha on January 21, 2022).The FIR booked the accused under Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of Information Technology Act and the following provisions under the Indian Penal Code:153A (promoting enmity on religion etc);153B (imputations prejudicial to national-integration);295A (insulting religious beliefs);354D (stalking);509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman); 500 (criminal defamation).The chargesheet added a few more provisions as it was discovered during the course of investigation that the accused Shweta Singh, Rawat, Bishnoi and Niraj Singh were in contact with each other when the crime was being committed and later deleted the data from their computers which could have been evidence. The provisions added in the chargesheet are:34 (common intention);120B (criminal conspiracy); and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence)..The chargesheet also clarified that the police in Mumbai as well as in Delhi who are investigating the offence, would be represented by special public prosecutors in order to ensure that the important and sensitive case is put forth with legal expertise and technical know-how.

[Bulli Bai App] What does 917-page chargesheet by Mumbai Police say?

Neha Joshi

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