Bulli Bai row: IT ministry blocks Telegram channel targeting Hindu women with obscene photos

New Delhi, Jan 05: Days after controversy erupted over the 'Bulli Bai' app, where photos of Muslim women were shared for 'auction' on GitHub, a similarly derogatory channel came to light targetting Hindu women has appeared on Telegram.

After a series of viral Tweets emerged on the microblogging platform Twitter, the IT Ministry on Tuesday ordered the blocking of a channel on Telegram called 'Hindu Randiyan', that circulated photos of Hindu women among its subscribers, who abused them. The channel was reportedly created in June 2021.

Union Minister for Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnav, took to Twitter and wrote,''"Channel blocked. Government of India coordinating with police authorities of states for action."

The development comes after the Mumbai police had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against unidentified persons following complaints that doctored photographs of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded for 'auction' on the app called Bulli Bai', hosted on the open-source software platform GitHub.

While there was no actual auction' or sale', the purpose of the app seemed to be to humiliate and intimidate the targeted women, many of whom are active social media users.

The Mumbai cyber police station has also registered a case against the app's unidentified developers and Twitter handles which promoted it.