Delhi Police on Sunday (January 9) arrested the alleged creator of ‘Sulli Deals’ app from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore.
Police said this is the first arrest made in the case. The app was used to auction Muslim women and listed their names and doctored photographs, sourced without permission. A similar trend was seen on Bulli Bai app, modelled on the Sulli Deals app. Both the apps used the hosting platform Github to auction the photographs.
Accused Aumkareshwar Thakur (26) did his BCA from IPS Academy in Indore and is a resident of Newyork City Township, police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) KPS Malhotra said during preliminary interrogation that the accused admitted that he was a member of a group on Twitter and the idea to defame and troll Muslim women was shared there.
“He had developed the code on GitHub. The access of GitHub was with all the members of the group. He had shared the app on his Twitter account. The photos of the Muslim women were uploaded by the group members,” the officer said.
The group that police referred to was reportedly called ‘Trade Mahasabha’ which Thakur had joined in January 2020, using his Twitter handle ‘gangescion’. According to reports, the group mostly discussed ways to troll Muslim women. The Sulli Deals was a culmination of this interaction and its members were common with the Twitter group, who started uploading photographs of Muslim women including prominent personalities like journalists and activists.
Thakur reportedly had deleted his social media accounts after the issue was raised in the media and an investigation was launched to pin down the masterminds behind these apps. He was arrested on the basis of inputs police received from Bulli Bai app creator Niraj Bishnoi during questioning. Bishnoi along with three others has been arrested in the Bulli Bai app case.