Months after the controversial Sulli Deals app, that had offered pics of Muslim women as ‘deals’, another such app has appeared on open-source code repository Github. In the recent incident, photos of hundreds of Muslim women were misused and uploaded by an unidentified group on an app using GitHub by the name of ‘Bulli Bai’ on January 1. While the culprits behind the Sulli Deals were never caught and their identity never revealed, the people behind the Bulli Bai app are self-proclaimed supporters of the Khalistani movement, and demand the release of arrested Khalistani terrorists.
The app was hosted at the URL bullibai.github.io, however the same has been taken down now after people started to point out the app on social media and some targets approached the authorities. One Twitter account associated with the app also has been suspended.
The matter came to light after Ismant Ara, one of the female journalists at ‘The Wire’ became a ‘Bulli Bai’ target who happened to inform about her bad start to the New Year 2022. “It is very sad that as a Muslim woman you have to start your new year with this sense of fear and disgust. Of course it goes without saying that I am not the only one being targeted in this new version of #sullideals”, she tweeted.
However, unlike the Sulli deals controversy, the Delhi Police has taken cognizance of the matter and directed concerned officials to take appropriate actions.
Ismat Araa also filed a complaint against the app with the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police, demanding “immediate registration of FIR and consequent action against people behind the auctioning of Muslim women on social media.” In her complaint, she said that the term ‘Bulli Bai’ itself is disrespectful, and the content of the GitHub webpage of the app is clearly aimed at insulting Muslim women, because the term ‘Bulli’ is exclusively used for Muslim women. She wrote that the entire website seems to have been designed with the intent of embarrassing and insulting Muslim women.
UPDATE: A complaint has been filed by me with the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police for immediate registration of FIR and consequent action against people behind the auctioning of Muslim women on social media. #sullideals #BulliDeals @DelhiPolice pic.twitter.com/oX3ROLEgv1
— Ismat Ara (@IsmatAraa) January 1, 2022
Ismat Araa added that she was deeply disturbed by a tweet headlined with “Your bulli bai for the day is @IsmatAraa”, which was accompanied by a doctored photograph. She requested the police to file an FIR under sections 153A, 153B, 354A, 506, 509 of the IPC and sections 66 and 67 of the IT Act.
What is Bulli Bai app
‘Bulli Bai’ is an application that is hosted on GitHub API and operates similar to the ‘Sulli Deals’ app. The app blatantly offers Muslim women as a ‘deal’ for people on social media. While the Twitter handle of the Bulli Bai has been suspended, its bio had read ‘Bulli Bai is a community-driven open-source app by Khalsa Sikh Force (KSF).’ It is pertinent to note that the Bulli Bai Twitter account had a hashtag that read #FreeJaggiNow in its Twitter name, and its banner image also had the same hashtag.
Further revealed by the Twitter location status, it seems that the account is being operated from the USA and is recently created in the month of December 2021 with intentions to pressure the Indian government to release Jagtar Singh Johal, better known as ‘Jaggi’.
OpIndia managed to scroll through the posts by the Twitter account of Bulli Bai, and it can be said that the account regularly posted images of women lifted from Twitter, under the heading ‘Your Bulli Bai for the day is’. They also tagged the Twitter handle of the women it targeted, using the format ‘Your ਬੁੱਲੀ ਬਾਈ of the day is @<Twitterhandle>’. Here, they wrote the words Bulli Bai in Gurmukhī.
The Bulli Bai account also retweeted similar tweets posted by other accounts. One such account is named Khalsa Warrior, which is still active on Twitter and had made several images of Women using the Bulli Bai app. After the complaints were filed against the app and the Twitter account, the @bullibai_ Twitter account has been suspended.
The hashtag #FreeJaggiNow history
Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi is a multiple murder accused and was detained in India in November 2017. The hashtag #FreeJaggiNow has been used by several social media handles who paint him as a good man illegally detained by the Punjab Police. We have found that the hashtag was not only promoted on Twitter but other platforms as well. Interestingly, the hashtags #FreeJaggiNow and #FreeJaggi have been making rounds for months without raising any red flags.
The hashtag #FreeJaggiNow was last seen making rounds over social media during the Farmers Protest. As farmers protests made noise in media, the propaganda to use the protests to raise voices for the murder accused Jaggi started to play in the field.
Who is Jagtar Singh Johal or ‘Jaggi’
Jaggi is a British resident from Glasgow, Scotland. In 2017, while he was visiting India to attend a wedding, the Punjab Police arrested him as a suspect in several cases. As per the police reports, he is a staunch Khalistani supporter. He is facing several murder and attempts to murder cases. According to National Investigation Agency’s charge sheets, he has been named in the murder cases of Hindu Takht leader Amit Sharma, RSS leader Brig. (Retd.) Jagdish Kumar Gagneja, RSS leader Ravinder Gosain, Shiv Sena leader Durga Dass Gupta, Pastor Sultan Masih, and Dera Sacha Sauda followers Satpal Sharma and his son Ramesh Sharma.
Jaggi was also accused of paying Rs.27 lakh to the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief Harminder Singh Mintoo (deceased) in France in 2013 to assassinate RSS leader Ravinder Gosain. His name also appeared in the attempt to murder Shiv Sena activist Amit Arora and the firing at RSS Shakha in Kidwai Nagar in Ludhiana in 2016.
