Shivani Thakur
Published on: June 22, 2022 at 14:24 IST
The Mumbai Sessions Court granted Bail to three accused in the Bulli Bai case – Aumkareshwar Thakur, Neeraj Bishnoi and Neeraj Singh.
The Metropolitan Magistrate in Bandra had denied the bail requests of Thakur and Singh and had granted release to three of the accused, while Bishnoi had to withdraw his application due to technical issues.
Additional sessions judge AB Sharma directed that the accused be released on bail on furnishing bail bond of ₹50,000 each with one or two solvent sureties in the like amount.
All of the applications were fiercely challenged by the special prosecutor. He stated that there was a strong case against them at first glance, and the evidence gathered up to that point amply demonstrated the accused’s guilt.
He went on to say that the accused’s acts had a negative impact on the nation’s cohesion and jeopardised its integrity. Therefore, he begged for the application to be rejected.
The case has its genesis in an app ‘Bulli Bai’ which appeared on open source platform GitHub.
Users were able to engage in a virtual “auction” of more than 100 renowned Muslim women after the app published information about them.
It caused controversy, and on January 1, 2022, the cyber cell of the Mumbai police filed a first information report (FIR) based on complaints from women who had been targeted by the app.