Delhi Police sends ‘Bulli Bai’ case to IFSO unit, gets nod for MLAT procedure in ‘Sulli Deals’ case

PTI, Jan 5, 2022, 7:59 AM IST

The Delhi Police on Tuesday transferred the ‘Bulli Bai’ case to its Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit and is planning to get a nod for Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty procedure to seek information about the app from its foreign-based hosting platform, officials said.

Police said the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSCO) unit is also probing the ‘Sulli Deals’ mobile application case that emerged in July last year.

About the probe into the ‘Sulli Deals’ case, a police officer said the IFSCO unit on Tuesday got a nod for Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) procedure in criminal matters from the Centre.

Hundreds of Muslim women were listed for ”auction” on the ‘Bulli Bai’ mobile application with photographs sourced without permission and doctored. It has happened for the second time in less than a year. The app appeared to be a clone of ‘Sulli Deals’ which triggered a similar row last year.

The Delhi Police on Saturday registered an FIR against unknown persons for allegedly uploading a doctored picture of a woman journalist on a website. The journalist had lodged a complaint and shared a copy on Twitter.

”A case was registered in connection with the ‘Bulli Bai’ mobile app after a complaint was received on January 1. The probe is underway. We have also approached the hosting platform which is based abroad and are awaiting their reply for further investigation into the matter,” a senior police officer said.

Another officer said, ”The ‘Bulli Bai’ case has been transferred to the IFSCO unit and as per protocol we are planning to write to authorities concerned to seek approval for MLAT even as an investigation into the matter is underway.” The cyber cell of the Mumbai Police, which is also probing the app case, has arrested a 19-year-old woman, alleged to be the main culprit, from Uttarakhand, and a 21-year-old engineering student from Bengaluru.

Vishal Kumar Jha, the student, and co-accused Shweta Singh reportedly knew each other. According to the police, more arrests are likely.

As far as the ‘Sulli Deals’ case is concerned, the Delhi Police officer said, ”We had sought approval for MLAT in the matter last year. It is a long process involving various procedures. Today, we got approval for it from the Government of India. The investigation is in progress.” On Monday, the Delhi Police had said that it has sought details from the GitHub platform about the developer of the controversial mobile application and had also written to Twitter for information about the account handler who first posted about the app.

The city police also asked Twitter to block and remove on the microblogging platform any ”offensive content” shared from the ‘Bulli Bai’ app which had put up pictures of hundreds of Muslim women, including prominent personalities, for ”auction”.

According to a senior police officer, the case has been registered under sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 354 A (sexual harassment and punishment for harassment) of the Indian Penal Code.