THE Delhi Police has arrested a teenage boy from Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly setting up a Clubhouse chatroom abusing women from India’s minority Muslim community.
The action was taken after a screen recording the talks on two chatrooms were circulated on Twitter.
The recording showed participants numbering around 20 uttering lewd words against Muslim women.
The names of the groups were “Muslim gals are more beautiful than Hindu gals” which was created on January 17 and “girls don’t have the privilege to marry upper caste boys” which was also made the same evening.
According to a report in The Independent, a user by the name of Bismisllah (real name reported to be Rahul Kapoor) was reportedly behind the first chatroom. He said that he made the group as per the instructions of another person with the username Sallos, according to Indian daily Hindustan Times. The teenager said he handed over the position of the group moderator to Sallos after creating it.
Sources in Delhi Police said the person behind the second username had been identified though the details were yet to be made public.
On January 18, Swati Maliwal, the chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women, issued a notice to the Delhi Police seeking action against the participants of both the controversial groups.
Following this, the police lodged cases against unknown people under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
The chatroom incident happened on the heels of two cases where pictures of Muslim women were displayed for online auction.
On January 1, hundreds of Muslims across India, including journalists, artists, lawyers and others, found their images among those used on the ‘Bulli Bai’ app, which claimed that they were available for sale.
A website and app similar to ‘Bulli Bai’, called ‘Sulli Deals’, surfaced last year and also hosted photos of prominent Indian Muslim women for “sale”. While ‘Bulli Bai’ was up for a day before being taken down, ‘Sulli Deals’ was accessible for weeks.
Several women lodged complaints after the incident sparked an outrage on social media.
Voices across religious and political divides condemned the apps, saying that they constitute acts of harassment against Muslim women in the country.
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