India detains suspects over fake auction site listing Muslim women

Police in India have detained a man and a woman alleged to be involved in the offering for sale of prominent Muslim women on a fake online auction website.

The cyber unit of the Mumbai Police detained the two suspects on Tuesday following a complaint from one of the targeted women, according to government officials.

Police brought charges against the man, a 21-year-old engineering student, and said they were investigating the woman further. It wasn’t clear whether the two created the website.

Photographs of more than 100 prominent Indian Muslim women, including journalists, activists, film stars and artists, were displayed last weekend without their permission on a website and put up for fake auction. 

The women listed on the website also included the 65-year-old mother of a disappeared Indian student and Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

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Derogatory website

The website, which was taken down within 24 hours, was called “Bulli Bai,” a derogatory slang term for Indian Muslims. 

Though there was no real sale involved, the Muslim women listed on the website said the auction was intended to humiliate them, many of whom have been vocal about rising Hindu nationalism in India and some of the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The website was hosted on GitHub, a San Francisco-based coding platform. 

A company spokesperson said GitHub had taken down the user account that had hosted the website on its platform, and that it would cooperate with investigating authorities.

Police in at least three states said they have opened investigations into the incident and filed criminal complaints against developers of the website, based on the complaints of the targeted women.

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