The alleged mastermind in the ‘Bulli Bai’ case, 21-year-old Neeraj Bishnoi, has been suspended by the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) Bhopal. In a letter, the college administration said, “Neeraj Bishnoi...studying BTech since September 2020 via online has been arrested by Delhi Police in connection with his alleged involvement in Bulli Bai App. Accordingly, Mr Neeraj Bishnoi is suspended with immediate effect from the university until further notice, in view of bringing disrepute to the university and defaming the name of the Institute."
Neeraj Bishnoi was arrested from Jorhat in Assam, and was known to be a bright student, a police official said on Thursday, January 6. But he had never attended in-person classes at his engineering college, VIT Bhopal campus situated in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, he said. The campus is located around 100 km from Bhopal.
Sehore Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Samir Yadav said as per the college authorities, Bishnoi was a student of B Tech second year, and had so far attended only online classes. A special cell of Delhi Police arrested Bishnoi, in the case from Assam. The cyber cell of Mumbai Police had arrested three persons earlier with regard to the app which targeted Muslim women by putting up their pictures online for virtual auction.
The investigators in Mumbai had zeroed in on Bishnoi as the suspected creator of the app and traced his location to Jorhat in Assam by examining his digital footprint, a police official said. As per Delhi Police, Bishnoi, a resident of Jorhat who studies in Bhopal, was the creator of the Bulli Bai app on the platform GitHub as well as the main Twitter account holder of Bulli Bai . An Assam Police officer said the operation to arrest him lasted about 12 hours, he added.
The three arrests made by the cyber cell of Mumbai Police are Shweta Singh from Uttarakhand, who has passed her Class 12 exam and is planning to study engineering, 21-year-old Mayank Rawal, also from Uttarakhand, and Bengaluru-based Vishal Kumar Jha, a second-year engineering student like Bishnoi and aged 21 too.
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.
Watch TNM’s explainer on the issue below.
With PTI inputs