BENGALURU: The Mumbai police on Tuesday arrested Vishal Kumar, a 21-year-old student from a prominent engineering college in the city, in the controversial ‘Bulli Bai’ case targeting and portraying prominent Muslim women in a highly derogatory manner on a now-deleted portal. Kumar, a resident of Kumaraswamy Layout was reportedly summoned for questioning on Monday evening to Mumbai, said sources on condition of anonymity.
Kumar has been arrested under Sections 153 (wantonly provoking with intent to cause riot), 509 (insulting modesty of a woman), 354 (assault or use of criminal force to any woman with intention to outrage modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. According to sources, Kumar had reportedly not developed the content but had allegedly shared it online.
Earlier, on Tuesday morning, Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant had told TNIE that the city police had no knowledge of any arrest by Mumbai police in the Bulli Bai case. “The Mumbai police neither informed us nor did they seek any help. We did not have any information on the arrest from the city,” the top cop had said.
The Mumbai police on Monday evening had stated that they have detained a 21-year-old student from Bengaluru for allegedly sharing the content of the obnoxious Internet platform through his Twitter handle and that he is being questioned by officers of the cyber police station of Mumbai Police’s Crime Branch.
On January 1, news of ‘Bulli Bai’ spread on social media, which is a clone of the ‘Sulli Deals’ app that had surfaced in July last year targeting and portraying prominent Muslim women in an objectionable manner.
Mumbai Police acted based on an FIR after a complaint was filed by one of the victims against the developers of the platform and those who shared it online. The Delhi Police have also sought details from the ‘GitHub’ platform about the developer of the objectionable content and have asked Twitter to block and remove it. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) -- India’s nodal agency to monitor and combat cyber security threats -- is coordinating with the police teams.