'Bulli Bai' row: accused remanded in Mumbai Police custody till January 10

A local court on Tuesday remanded a 21-year-old engineering student, arrested in the 'Bulli Bai' app case, in Mumbai Police's custody till January 10.

The Mumbai cyber police apprehended the student, Vishal Kumar, from Bengaluru on Monday and later arrested him.

After being brought to Mumbai, he was produced before the Bandra metropolitan magistrate.

The police sought Kumar's custody for 10 days and also permission from the court to carry out searches at his premises in Bengaluru.

After hearing the police's submission, the magistrate remanded Kumar in police custody till January 10 and also permitted the cops to carry out searches at his premises.

The cyber cell had filed the FIR against unidentified persons following complaints that photographs of Muslim women were uploaded for auction on the app hosted by GitHub platform.

Earlier in the day, a Mumbai Police team also detained a woman, who is believed to be the main accused in the case, from Uttarakhand, an official said.

According to police, the woman and Kumar know each other.

Hundreds of Muslim women were listed for auction on the Bulli Bai' app with photographs sourced without permission and doctored. It has happened for the second time in less than a year. The app appeared to be a clone of Sulli Deals which triggered a similar row last year.

Amid outrage over Muslim women being targeted through the dodgy app, the Delhi Police had sought details from the GitHub platform about the developer of the 'Bulli Bai' mobile application and asked Twitter to block and remove related "offensive contents" on its platform.