Mumbai police charged two 21-year-old males and a 19-year-old lady over a web site which listed greater than a 100 outstanding Muslim girls as being on the market, police stated Wednesday.

The app, hosted on US coding platform GitHub, was named Bulli Bai — a vulgar time period which is usually used in opposition to Muslim girls. Users may bid on journalists, activists, movie stars, and artists, with images and names displayed as “Bulli Bai of the Day.” Pakistani activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai was additionally placed on a mock public sale, as was the 65-year-old mom of Najeeb Ahmed, a Muslim college scholar who disappeared beneath suspicious circumstances in 2016.

The web site was taken down after a number of girls posted about it on social media after discovering their very own images.

The scenario for Muslim girls in India

Investigative journalist Ismat Ara, whose identify and picture had been additionally listed on the portal, stated it aimed to “create a feeling of fear and shame in my mind, as well as in the minds of women in general” in her grievance to the police.

“It is indeed disappointing to see the impunity with which such hate mongers continue to target Muslim women,” she added.

This is the second time in lower than six months that Muslim girls had been focused on this manner in India. In July 2021,a similar Github platform under a different name put up Muslim girls for pretend auctions. This platform supplied “sulli” offers of the day, utilizing a unique slur for Muslim girls. It was not clear if the suspects arrested on Tuesday had been behind the older app.

Hana Mohsin Khan, an airline pilot with over 12,000 Twitter followers, advised DW on the time that many of the victims had been “vocal women, you know, people who are talking on the internet or on Twitter, and they’re educated women.”

India has seen an increase in Hindu nationalism since conservative Prime Minister Narendra Modi got here into energy in 2014, with mob violence against Muslims rising extra widespread. Last month, Indian police stated they had been investigating an occasion the place a Hindu non secular chief apparently called for mass killings of Muslims within the nation.

dj/rt (AP, Reuters)