Bulli Bai: Accused Mayank Rawat tests positive for COVID-19, Shweta Singh claims she was slapped

After fellow accused Vishal Jha and the investigating officer in the Bulli Bai app case tested COVID-19 positive, a Mumbai Court was informed on Friday that another accused, Uttarakhand native Mayank Rawat has also tested positive for the virus.

. The Court passed an order remanding Rawat to judicial custody for two weeks. He was in police custody until today.

. Meanwhile, co-accused Shweta Singh, an 18-year-old resident of Uttarakhand, claimed that she was slapped during the course of interrogation.

Before Metropolitan Magistrate Komalsing Rajput , Singh submitted that there were no external injuries.

. The prosecution meanwhile alleged that Neeraj Bishnoi, accused in the Sulli deals case, alerted the accused after which they proceeded to delete their respective Twitter handles.

They sought further remand of the accused in order to conduct further investigation into this aspect.

However, the defence lawyers opposed such request, pointing out that they have provided all details regarding their email and social media accounts. They have also been in custody for over 8 days now, it was pointed out.

After hearing the counsel briefly, the Court remanded both accused to judicial custody.

. The two Uttarakhand natives immediately moved their respective bail applications.

Advocate Sandeep Sherkhane appearing for Rawat informed the Court that Rawat had just followed a link that was forwarded to him on social media. He had neither created a link, nor made any application or posted anything. He claimed that the college topper had been falsely implicated in the case by the police.

. After granting time to the prosecution to file their response, the bail applications were listed for hearing on January 17. The bail plea of Jha will also be heard along with those of the other accused.

. The present case has its genesis in 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.

Complaints were filed by women who had been targeted by the app, after which the Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Police registered an FIR 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.

Bulli Bai: Accused Mayank Rawat tests positive for COVID-19, Shweta Singh claims she was slapped

Neha Joshi

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