Who Is Shweta Singh, The Prime Accused In 'Bulli Bai' Controversy

At least four individuals have been arrested in connection with the Bulli Bai app case which had listed hundreds of Muslim women for 'auction'.

Niraj Bishnoi, arrested on Thursday, January 5, is apparently the main conspirator. Bishnoi, a resident of Jorhat and a second-year B.Tech student attending college in Bhopal, is also the creator of the "Bulli Bai" app on the platform GitHub as well as the main account holder on Twitter.

The Mumbai Police on Tuesday, January 4, arrested an 18-year-old girl, Shweta Singh from Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district for being the prime suspect in connection with the case. A 21-year-old engineering student, Vishal Kumar Jha, was earlier arrested from Bengaluru.

Mayank Rawal (21), who is reportedly another conspirator, was arrested from Uttarakhand.

On January 1, photos of several Muslim women including journalists, students, social workers were posted on the 'Bulli Bai' application hosted on the GitHub platform without their consent to conduct a virtual 'auction'. The controversy has created massive outrage among the masses.

Who Is Shweta Singh?

Shweta has lost both her parents. She had lost her mother to cancer and later her father also succumbed to COVID-19 last year. She has an elder sister who is a commerce graduate, while her younger sister and brother are school students. The accused was preparing for her engineering entrance examinations, India Today reported.

The teenager used to run a fake Twitter handle with the name JattKhalsa07 and used to upload hate posts and objectionable content. People associated with her followed the same ideology as her.

Shweta was allegedly working on the instructions of her friend based in Nepal. Sources from the investigating team said that the preliminary information gathered from her revealed that a Nepal national, identified as Giyou, was commanding her regarding the activities to be carried out on the app. Police are probing his role and others involved in the crime.

After she was taken into custody, Mumbai Police officials sought a transit remand till January 5. Shweta's name was revealed by Vishal Kumar, who was earlier arrested in Bengaluru. Kumar claimed that he was in touch with the girl, who was also connected with people working on the posts and activities on the 'Bulli Bai' app.

The officials are also probing Vishal's role in the Sulli Deals incident, which came to light earlier in 2021. An average engineering student, Vishal's role was to edit pictures of women from a particular community and then upload them on the app.

It is also being probed whether the accused girl created the application or was helped by another person.

Javed Akhtar Stirs Controversy

Lyricist Javed Akhtar, while expressing his views on the case, urged people to forgive her as the young girl reportedly lost her parents to cancer and COVID-19 recently.

He took to his Twitter handle to ask netizens to show compassion and forgive the girl.

Also Read: Ganjam Becomes Odisha's First District To Be Free Of Child Marriages