Delhi court grants bail to Bulli Bai, Sulli Deals creators

Aumkareshwar Thakur was accused of creating the Sulli Deals app

An Indian court has granted bail to two men accused of creating separate apps that put up photos of Muslim women in a fake online auction.

A district court in the national capital Delhi gave them both bail on humanitarian grounds, their lawyers told the BBC.

The judge said one of the accused was a "first-time offender" and "prolonged" incarceration would harm him.

The bail order for the second accused isn't public yet.

• App that put Muslim women up for sale is shut

• The young Indians spreading hate online

Aumkareshwar Thakur, 25, and Neeraj Bishnoi, 20, were arrested in January for allegedly creating the apps Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai, respectively.

In both cases, there was no actual sale - the purpose was to degrade and humiliate Muslim women, many of whom have been outspoken about the rising tide of Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Though both apps were created months apart from each other, Mr Thakur was arrested only after the Bulli Bai app generated anger and outrage in January.

The open source app, hosted on web platform Git Hub, had uploaded photos of more than 100 Muslim women without their permission.

Sulli Deals was created in July 2021 - it had taken publicly available pictures and created profiles for more than 80 Muslim women, describing them as "deals of the day".

While the police began an investigation, based on complaints by some women who were targeted, no-one was arrested for months.

Critics say trolling against Muslim women has worsened in recent years in India's polarised political climate.

A 2018 Amnesty International report on online harassment in India showed that the more vocal a woman was, the more likely she was to be targeted - the scale of this increased for women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes.

Those featured on both the apps were all vocal Muslims, including journalists, activists, artists and researchers.

A commercial pilot whose photo was uploaded on Sulli Deals had told the BBC that she felt "chills" go down her spine when she heard about the app.

Legal website Live Law reported that while giving bail to Mr Thakur on Monday, the judge said he was not a flight risk and wasn't in a position to influence the investigation.

Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty

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