After just three days of investigation, the Mumbai Police has made a breakthrough in the Bulli Bai case, by apprehending three individuals behind the app and the Twitter accounts involved.

The Bulli Bai app, which you may be aware of, was created on the platform GitHub. It triggered a furore as photos of hundreds of Muslim women with significant social media following were misused with degrading texts as captions on 1 January, which implied that they were being auctioned.

And unfortunately, this is not the first time an incident like this has occurred, with the same thing taking place in July 2021 under the name of “Sulli Deals”. With zero arrests till date, the lack of action by the Delhi Police left the victims without any justice.

However, the present pace of investigation by the Mumbai police seems to have thrown up results within days of the incident.

Addressing a press conference on 5 January, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale confirmed that three accused have been identified as 21-year-old Vishal Kumar Jha and Mayank Rawal and 18-year-old Shweta Singh, who according to police is the apparent mastermind behind the case.

What are the new developments in the investigation? Who are behind this despicable act? To unpack this, for today’s episode, we speak with The Quint’s Ritvick Bhalekar and Nikhila Henry who have been reporting on the case since the start.

Ritvick Bhalekar, Senior Correspondent, The Quint

Nikhila Henry, South Bureau Chief, The Quint

Host and Producer: Himmat Shaligram

Editor: Shorbori Purkayastha

Music: Big Bang Fuzz

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