Neeraj Bishnoi - the main accused behind the 'Bulli Bai' app used by right-wing extremists to 'auction' Muslim women - showed no remorse for his actions during police interrogation, sources said Friday. Instead, he claimed to have done what he thought was "right", sources said.
Bishnoi, 21, and a second-year BTech student from an institute in Bhopal, was arrested by Delhi Police from Assam's Jorhat district yesterday. Officials told NDTV they had recovered the device used to create the app that was hosted on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned software-sharing platform.
Sources today said Bishnoi, a resident of Assam, was tracked down via digital surveillance of his Twitter account, which has now been suspended. Bishnoi created the @bullibai_ Twitter handle.
The app itself has now been deleted.
Sources said that interrogation so far had revealed it was developed in November and updated last month, at which time another Twitter handle - @sage0x1 was created.
Bishnoi reportedly also created a @giyu44 handle that he used to mock Mumbai Police - he referred to them as "slumbai police" - after they announced the three earlier arrests.
That handle, which remains active, contains multiple tweets of an abusive nature and a pinned tweet with a collection of screenshots taunting police over their arrests, as well as a 'confession'.
"You have arrested the wrong person, slumbai police... I am the creator of #BulliBaiApp... Got nothing to do with the two innocents whom u arrested, release them asap..." the tweet reads.
It was posted at 10.42 am on Wednesday, a day after Shweta Singh was arrested.
Bishnoi is the fourth person to be arrested in connection with the 'Bulli Bai' app, following those of Mayank Rawal, 21; Shweta Singh, 19; and Vishal Kumar Jha.
Mumbai Police have described Shweta Singh as the "mastermind" in a case that has triggered widespread outrage over the vile targeting of Muslim women journalists and activists online.
Sources have said a direct link between Shweta Singh, who is from Uttarakhand and has been described by police as 'the brain behind the app', and Neeraj Bishnoi is unclear at this time.
Authorities believe the two, however, were in contact via social media.
That this is the second time in less than a year - after the shocking 'Sulli deals' - Muslim women have been so attacked only adds to concern over the level of hatred shared online, apparently with little pushback from authorities, against women and minority communities.
'Sulli' is a derogatory slang word used by the right-wing against Muslim women in India.
