Muslim Women Photos On Twitter 'For Deals'; DCW Issues Notice To Delhi Police, Seeks Report

The Delhi Commission for Women has issued a notice to Delhi Police and sought a detailed action taken report in a matter where photos of Muslim women were uploaded by an unidentified group on an app. The panel has sought a reply from the police by July 12.

The Delhi Commission for Women has taken suo-moto cognisance on media report of uploading of pictures of many girls on internet using a platform namely 'GitHub'.

It has been reported that photos of hundreds of Muslim women and girls were uploaded by an unidentified group on an app using GitHub by the name of 'Sulli Deals' on Sunday, 4 July.

BCCL

Notice to Delhi Police

Reportedly, Sulli is a derogatory term used to refer to Muslim women," the notice issued to Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Cell, Delhi Police, reads. As per media reports, the app came to light when people started sharing their pictures with the term 'Sulli deal of the day' on Twitter, the panel said.

"Subsequently, many women had to leave social media platforms after their images got circulated. This is a very serious matter and constitutes cybercrime," the DCW said.

TOI

In the notice, the panel has sought copy of FIR registered in the matter, details of accused identified and arrested in the matter, steps taken to identify and arrest the accused in case of non-arrest and detailed action taken report in the matter.

A horrific incident

On Sunday, many Indian Muslim women were shocked to see their names and images put up for auction on Sulli Deals app, attributing them as ¡®Deal of the Day.¡¯

The app mostly targeted prolific Muslim women including journalists, analysts, researchers and artists. This horrific incident came into light when a Twitter user named ¡®K¡¯ tweeted about seeing her name and image, along with many other Muslim women, on Sulli Deals website with the title 'Your Sulli deal of the day is.'

Sulli deal

¡®Sulli¡¯ is a derogatory slang used to address Muslim women in India. Soon after that several other women came forward to speak up about their horrifying experience of ¡®being publicly sold¡¯ on an online platform.

The 'Sulli' Deals App

Sulli Deals, an app created on GitHub, described itself as a ¡°community driven open source project¡± and aimed to harass Muslim women from different nations. The app would ask the users to click on the option ¡®Find your Sulli deal of the day¡¯ and then display the picture of a random girl denoting her as ¡®your Sulli deal of the day.¡¯

The app continued with its activity of ¡®putting Muslim women on sale¡¯ for about 20 days, after which it was taken down, as confirmed by Erica Brescia, Chief Operating Officer, GitHub via Twitter.

Sulli deal

Re-run of 'Bois Locker Room'

The incident triggered massive outrage on social media platforms. Netizens questioned the privacy policy guidelines of online websites and the alarming rates of cybercrimes against women.

Ranak Mann/Indiatimes

This comes almost a year after a group of South Delhi teens (mostly schoolboys) created an Instagram group chat called Bois Locker Room to share photos of women (many of them underage). The group involved discussions objectifying women and graphic sexual language.