Mumbai: A local court in Mumbai has sent Shweta Singh (18) and her friend Mayank Rawat (20) into 14-day judicial custody till January 28 in the ‘Bulli Bai’ app case, news agency ANI reported quoting Mayank’s lawyer Sandeep Sherkhane.
The lawyer further stated that both the accused have filed a bail plea in the Bandra court, and hearing on the same will take place on Monday (January 17).
Shweta and Mayank’s police remand ended earlier in the day. Following it, she was produced before the local court, but Mayank could not be due to testing positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
On Monday (January 10), Mumbai Police informed the local court that Shweta and Mayank were aware about Niraj Bishnoi, the primary accused in the Bulli Bai case, using their Twitter handles for the app. The lawyers of the accused, however, argued that their clients were innocent and were falsely implicated in the matter, alleging that their Twitter profiles were hacked.
Apart from Shweta and Mayank – both of whom were nabbed from Uttarakhand, a third accused Vishal Kumar Jha (21) was arrested from Bengaluru. Vishal has been sent to judicial custody and is currently admitted at Kalina quarantine centre in Mumbai after testing positive for Covid-19.
During the previous hearing of Shweta and Mayank, Mumbai Cyber Police investigating officer Maushmi Patil sought more time from the court, claiming that a lot of data is stored on the four mobile phones and laptops recovered from the accused and analysing them was taking significant time.
Meanwhile, prime accused Neeraj, who was a second-year engineering student of the Vellore Institute of Technology, Bhopal, has been suspended for his involvement in the case. During his interrogation by Delhi Police, he claimed to have learnt hacking at a young age and has been doing it since 15. Neeraj has said he is proud of the app that he created.
The ‘Bulli Bai’ app was uploaded on open-source platform Github, and later its content was promoted on Twitter carrying morphed images of over 100 Muslim women meant for ‘auctioning’.
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