Two days after the arrest of Aumkareshwar Thakur who allegedly developed the “Sulli Deals” application, where Muslim women were auctioned online, the Delhi Police is trying to identify all the members of the ‘trad’ group, who were involved in trolling women, through digital backtracking.
According to police sources, laptops seized from both Thakur and Neeraj Bishnoi — arrested by the Mumbai police in the copy cat “Bulli Bai” app case — are currently being analysed by the forensics department. The police is trying to recover deleted files from the devices. Both men were members of the same Twitter group aimed at “defaming and trolling Muslim women”.
Digital footprints
“We are trying to identify and trace all the members of the 'trad' group who were involved in selling the women online…we are using social media engineering and reverse tracking to identify their original accounts,” a senior police officer said.
Police have identified as many as 30 Twitter handles that were part of the said 'trad' group, officials said.
The officer said that since all Twitter accounts that were part of the group have been deleted, efforts are on to trace those accounts through digital footprints. “They used all kinds of names and aliases for their accounts so it is difficult to pin down on a specific person…we will be able to successfully backtrack and trace the person through the IP address,” the officer added.
The source said once all the group members are identified and traced, appropriate legal action will be taken and more arrests will be likely.
Officials had said Thakur was part of a ‘trad’ (Tradmahasabha) group on Twitter and Telegram, where members allegedly aired offensive views on subjects ranging from the caste system to women’s empowerment. Casteist slurs and abuse are also discussed in such groups, a senior officer said.
DCP (Special Cell Cyber Unit) K.P.S. Malhotra had said Thakur had developed the code for the “Sulli Deals” application on GitHub and had given the access of the same to all the members of the ‘trad’ group. Police had said that Thakur had shared the application on his Twitter account and the photos of Muslim women were uploaded by other members of the group.
