Bulli Bai app case: Court denies bail to Shweta Singh

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjashree Gharat rejected the bail plea of Singh, who is studying Archaeology at Banaras Hindu University.

Mumbai: Mumbai Sessions Court on Friday rejected the bail plea of 18-year-old Uttarakhand resident, Shweta Singh, arrested by Mumbai cyber cell in connection with the “Bulli Bai” app case.

Her counsel, advocate Chittranjan Das, had argued that Singh, who has lost both her parents, was not the creator of the application. (Vijay Bate/HT Photo)

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjashree Gharat rejected the bail plea of Singh, who is studying Archaeology at Banaras Hindu University.

Her counsel, advocate Chittranjan Das, had argued that Singh, who has lost both her parents, was not the creator of the application. Niraj Bishnoi another accused had already given her a clean chit while speaking to the press, he said.

“She was arrested in the case on January 7, 2022, and the only allegation against her is that she was in touch with Vishal Kumar Jha, another accused in the case. She is a student and her whole career will be impacted if she was kept incarcerated,” Das contended.

Opposing the bail plea, assistant public prosecutor Kalpana Hire, representing the Cyber cell, contended the investigation had revealed that the accused were also involved in “Sulli Deals” application and further investigation was required.

Bulli Bai app was uploaded on the open-source host platform GitHub on December 31, 2021. In this app, morphed images of more than 100 Muslim women were published in an attempt to “auction” them. Five Twitter handles were promoting the Bulli Bai app on Twitter. Jha, Singh and another arrested accused Mayank Rawat were suspected to be operating these handles.

In a related development, the cyber police on Friday filed a chargesheet against six accused arrested in the Bulli Bai app case. Confirming the development, deputy commissioner of police Rashmi Karandikar, said, “Around 2,000-page chargesheet has been filed with supporting technical and other evidence. The chargesheet contains statements of 17 victims and 27 witnesses.”

Mumbai cyber police had registered a first information report (FIR) on January 1, a day after the app was uploaded on GitHub.