[BREAKING] Bulli Bai Case: Mumbai court rejects bail plea of accused Vishal Jha, Mayank Rawat, Shweta Singh

A Mumbai court on Thursday rejected the bail applications filed by Vishal Jha, Mayank Rawat and Shweta Singh, accused in the Bulli Bai case. .The Metropolitan Magistrate at Bandra Komalsing Rajput pronounced the verdict today after having reserved the verdict on January 18, 2022..The three accused - Bangalore student Vishal Jha and Uttarakhand residents Shweta Singh and Mayank Rawat - had pointed out in their petitions that they had been falsely implicated in the case as they had not committed any offence and had no criminal antecedents whatsoever.They had also claimed that they had not created any mobile applications, nor were they connected to the other accused in the case.It was contended that they had submitted all electronic devices for the investigation, were co-operating with the probe and were in no position to tamper with the evidence.It was also pointed out that two accused, Jha and Rawat had tested COVID positive and were presently in Kalina quarantine centre..Advocate Shivam Deshmukh arguing for 21-year-old Vishal Jha, had stated that the prosecution failed to make out a case on their allegation that the account - @khalsa - had been used to malign the image of the complainant or any other women.Meanwhile, advocate Sandeep Sherkhane for Rawat argued that his client did not have any criminal antecedents and did not make any app nor posted anything against any community..The Mumbai police had opposed their applications stressing on the fact that the custody of the accused was required for further in depth probe into the case.Their reply highlighted that the accused had intentionally used Sikh names on their Twitter and other social media handles to create enmity between Sikhs and Muslims, and they also were in touch with the Sulli Bai case accused due to which they had deleted various social media accounts belonging to them..The present case was triggered by an app called 'Bulli Bai', which appeared on open-source platform GitHub, putting out details of more than 100 Muslim women, allowing users to participate in an 'auction' of those women.The three accused had been arrested by the Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Police after an FIR was registered on January 1 against relevant Twitter handles and the developer of Bulli Bai for offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act based on complaints of women targeted by the app.