New Delhi: Delhi Police arrested Aumkareshwar Thakur, the alleged mastermind behind a web-based app ‘Sulli Deals’ that resorted to online harassment of Muslim women, from Indore on Sunday.
Confirming the arrest of Thakur, Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) DCP KPS Malhotra said the questioning of 25-year-old Thakur was going on. The analysis of the technical gadgets was also underway to find out the codes/images related to the application, he added.
Thakur had allegedly created the app in July last year which hosted doctored photographs and objectionable comments on Muslim women.
“We apprehended Thakur from Indore for his role in the Sulli Deals case. During interrogation, he admitted that he joined a trad group (Tradmahasabha) on Twitter in January 2020 and the idea was to defame and troll Muslim women. He then developed code for the Sulli Deals on GitHub. The access to the app was with all the members of the group. He shared the app details on his Twitter account. The photos of the Muslim women were uploaded by other group members,” The Indian Express quoted the DCP as saying.
In July, a Twitter user shared screenshots from GitHub, which hosted ‘Sulli Deals’, labelling them as the ‘Deal of the Day’. The pictures of nearly 90 women belonging to the Muslim community including prominent journalists, activists and artists had been shared, putting them up ‘for auction’.
According to social media reports, majority of the women profiled were Indian while some of them were Pakistani nationals. The pictures of women shared were allegedly sourced from their social media handles. It is to be noted that ‘Sulli’ and ‘Bulli’ are derogatory terms for Muslim women.
The app was pulled down by HitHub following complaints by several women with the police alleging that the creators of the app were misusing their photos to “auction” them online. The website has been taken down after Delhi police and NCW took note.
