Mumbai cybercops to probe online vile attack on Muslim women

Sickening attempts were made to target prominent Muslim women voices by doctoring their photographs and ldquoauctioningrdquo them on the internet in the new year The crime perpetrated through an appmdashBulli Baimdashhosted on GitHub sparked massive outrage across the country A woman from Mumbai and another from Delhi have approached the police while the Centre has said that the user behind the app has been blockedThe coordinated attack was carried out to objectify and dehumanise over 100 successful Muslim women including journalists scholars activists and students A handful of them had to deactivate their Twitter accountsIsmat Ara Delhibased journalistDelhibased journalist Ismat Ara one of the complainants told midday ldquoThis has been happening repeatedly against a set of Muslim women who are vocal on social media This is a way to shut up women by making sexual remarks on them maligning their character constantly humiliating and degrading themrdquoldquoThese people are also showing thumb to the police that they will do what they want as the cops are not taking stringent action The police must take it as a challenge and arrest themrdquo she saidCitybased Sidrah Patel has filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell of Mumbai policeSayema Rehman radio jockey right Hasiba Amin Congress functionaryldquoI learnt about this vile attack through a friend who told me that it has begun again I was not targeted in Sulli Deals campaign against Muslim women but this time they targeted me as well So I have approached Mumbai police and got an FIR registeredrdquo said PatelIn July 2021 similar crimes had been committed through another app but there was no concrete action by authoritiesPopular radio jockey Sayema Rehman was also targeted ldquoThere are many Muslim names including mine in the obnoxious Bulli Deals same as Sulli Deals Even Najeebrsquos mother has not been spared Itrsquos a reflection on Indiarsquos broken justice system a dilapidated law and order arrangement Are we becoming the most unsafe country for womenrdquo RJ Sayema wrote on TwitterSayema told midday ldquoThere has been a coordinated attack to silence progressive Muslim women for quite some time This is nothing newhellip I have been facing cyberbullying mental harassment morphing of my images on social media and absolutely unparliamentary languages for the last four years And it is all because I am a progressive Muslim womanrdquoldquoAround six months ago when the crooks started Sulli Deals campaign to auction Muslim women upped their images for sale they were made lsquodeals of the dayrsquo etc It was extremely shockingrdquo Sayema saidldquoThe word here is impunity because whoever did this has absolutely no fear of law The scarier part is the silence of the establishment If this is not the wakeup call for the government machinery then what elserdquo she wonderedldquoMultiple FIRs were registered during Sulli Deals time around six months ago That time too only the links were taken down How was even that an action None of the accused was identified nor arrestedrdquo she addedldquoMany accounts reared their heads claiming that they created Sulli Dealshellip but the police remained a silent spectator on cyberspacerdquo she saidldquoIf a person who made vicious remarks against a cricketerrsquos daughter can be arrested then why canrsquot the accused who have been making communal attacks to shame Muslim women on social media Whatrsquos stopping the police to arrest the accusedrdquo Sayema wonderedldquoMy only expectation as a citizen of this country from the authority is to guarantee our safety of women living here This is an organised attackhellip this is an attempt to silence progressive voices Itrsquos a communal attack because here all the victims are Muslim women I will hold the government accountable for thisrdquo she saidHad taken up with IT minister ChaturvediMP Priyanka Chaturvedi said three women whose photos were uploaded on the offensive app had approached her and were suggested to approach the Mumbai policeldquoI have been pursuing this ever since Sulli Deals came into my knowledge back in the month of July and I had taken this to the IT minister Unfortunately they shrugged off their responsibility by saying that they have asked the platform to lock the site but thatrsquos not the only way to deter such people it is going to be useless till the action is not taken against these individuals who have been behind these sitesrdquo Chaturvedi told middayldquoHow many sites will you block as they keep getting emboldened Any woman will be upset to know that their photographs are being used for auctioning purpose on such websites without their knowledge So action must be taken against these extremist groups of people we have to get to the crux of the matterrdquo she saidldquoSimultaneously social media platforms have to cooperate they cannot keep stonewalling under the garb of lsquoservers are abroadrsquo or lsquointermediary safe harbourrsquo that has been given to them We cannot afford these excuses in a democracy like this when women are at risk and sexually abused The whole episode must be taken seriously by the both Home Ministry as well as IT ministryrdquo she demandedDeputy Commissioner of Police Cyber Dr Rashmi Karandikar said ldquoWest region Cyber police station has registered a case under sections 153A 153B 295A 354D 509 500 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of Information Technology Act against the Twitter handle holders and Bulli Bai app developer hosted on GitHubrdquolsquoNo response in six monthsrsquoCongress functionary Hasiba Amin said ldquoI had also registered one FIR in Delhi but the police showed cold response No development has taken place in the last six months It is the reason I did not approach Delhi police this timerdquo Amin told middayShe said this is the third time that progressive Muslim women have been targeted ldquoAll this started with Sulli Deals Then the links were pulled down after a few FIRs were registered But again the extremist group reared their head in May during Eid after Muslim women uploaded their festival photographsrdquo she addedldquoThey created a YouTube channel lsquoLiberal Dogersquo went live by uploading photographs of Muslim women on a live streaming act and auctioned it The extremist men would make vulgar remarks by explaining the body features of the woman whose photo was on live streamingrdquo she said ldquoAll these were raised in the parliament by Dr Mohammad Javed from Kishanganj district of Bihar still the Delhi police did not work on thisrdquo she addedAgencies must track footprints ExpertsCyber expert Govind Ray said ldquoTo post a project on GitHub one needs to create an account so there is surely going to be the online footprints Itrsquos important for agencies to trace back the offenders as itrsquos a huge trauma for the women whose pictures and names were posted on the applicationrdquoAnother expert Ritesh Bhatia said ldquoCops should seek IP and login details from GitHub and Twitter Similar details should be asked for Sulli Deals incident and the technical information for both should be compared for similaritiesrdquo02No of FIRs registered so far100Approx no of women targeted through the app