Police in Delhi are investigating how dozens of Muslim women were offered for sale in fake “auctions” online without their knowledge. The Delhi Police Cyber Cell registered an FIR against the software “Sulli Deals”where photos of Muslim women were allegedly being displayed without their consent. Photographs of more than 80 Muslim women, including students, activists and journalists, had been uploaded on an app, said Sources.
According to reports by BBC, Hana Khan, a commercial pilot whose name was also on the list and was alerted to it when a friend sent her a tweet. The tweet took her to “Sulli Deals”, an app and website that had taken publicly available pictures of women and created profiles, describing the women as “deals of the day”. The app’s landing page had a photo of an unknown woman. On the next two pages Ms Khan saw photos of her friends. On the page after that she saw herself. She had been targeted because of her religion. “I’m a Muslim woman who’s seen and heard,” she said. “And they want to silence us,” said Ms Khan.
“No matter how strong you are, but if your picture and other personal information is made public, it scares you, it disturbs you,” said another woman to the BBC Hindi service. As per the reports by BBC,several of the women whose details were shared have taken to social media to call out the “perverts”, and vowed to fight. A few have formed a WhatsApp group to seek – and offer – support and some of them, including Ms Khan, have filed complaints with the police.
