Delhi: Police on Sunday registered a case based using a complaint submitted by a female journalist stating that an anonymous group of individuals was targeting her on a smartphone application called ‘Bulli Bai,’ which was built on the GitHub platform. According to Delhi Police, an FIR has been filed under Section 509 in the Cyber Police station in the South-East district. This comes six months after Delhi police filed a complaint about images of Muslim women being published and “auctioned” on the Github app.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, said late Saturday that action had been taken, the GitHub user behind the ‘Bulli Bai’ software had been stopped, and “further action” was being arranged. Later, Priyanka Chaturvedi thanked the Union Minister and expressed her hope that the Home Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology MEITY would assist Mumbai Police in apprehending the perpetrators.
A lady submitted the complaint at the Cyber police station, alleging that her photo was placed on a website to target her. The complainant stated that she was demanding the urgent filing of an FIR and the launch of an inquiry into unknown individuals harassing and insulting Muslim women on social media and the internet. The police had previously said that the allegation had been considered and that responsible officials had been ordered to take suitable action.
Meanwhile, the lady stated in her complaint that she was horrified to see that a site ‘had a doctored image of her in an unsuitable, unacceptable, and blatantly obscene context.’ She stated that social media, as a vehicle of public expression, cannot be exploited by sexist sectors of society to denigrate and derogate women in general and Muslim women in particular. She claimed that the aforementioned ‘GitHub’ is aggressive, menacing and intends to instil fear and humiliation in the hearts of women and the Muslim community, whose ladies are being attacked in this heinous manner.