Indian man arrested for fake auction of Muslim women

International Desk

Published: January 4, 2022, 04:20 PM

Indian man arrested for fake auction of Muslim women

Indian police have arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with an app that shared photos of more than 100 Muslim women saying they were on "sale".

He is an engineering student from the southern city of Bangalore whose identity has not been revealed, BBC reports. 

The charges against him are unclear but he is a "close follower" of the app, Bulli Bai, officials said.

The app was hosted on web platform GitHub, which has since taken it down amid widespread anger and outrage.

Photographs of several prominent Muslim journalists and activists were used on the app without their permission and put on "sale" in a fake auction.

This is the second attempt to harass Muslim women by "auctioning" them online. In July last year, an app and website called "Sulli Deals" created profiles of more than 80 Muslim women - using photos they uploaded online - and described them as "deals of the day".

In both cases, there was no real sale, but the purpose was to degrade and humiliate Muslim women - many of whom have been vocal about the rising tide of Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sulli is a derogatory Hindi slang term right-wing Hindu trolls use for Muslim women, and bulli is also pejorative.

Though the police began an investigation in the Sulli deals case, no one has been charged.

When news of the Bulli Bai app broke, poet Nabiya Khan who was targeted in the Sulli deals case, tweeted that the Delhi Police had yet to take action on her complaint in 2021.

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