Delhi Police on Thursday said they have arrested a 21-year-old man from Assam for allegedly creating the controversial app where doctored photographs of Muslim women were uploaded with derogatory messages. Police identified the arrested person as Neeraj Bishnoi, 21, a second-year B Tech student of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Bhopal.
On Wednesday night, a team of officers from the police’s IFSO (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations) unit reached Jorhat in Assam, and arrested Bishnoi, the son of a grocer.
DCP KPS Malhotra, chief of the IFSO, which is Delhi Police’s cybercrime unit, said Bishnoi was the “main conspirator and creator” of the app.
“He is the mastermind who created the app on GitHub. We have seized his laptop and other electronic devices. We have recovered evidence, which shows that he had created the app.”
The 21-year-old was brought to Delhi around 3.30pm after which he was produced before a city judge, who sent him to seven-day police custody.
DCP Malhotra said Bishnoi confessed he developed the app some time in November and uploaded it in the last week of December. “Bishnoi had created different handles on Twitter to promote the app. He was constantly monitoring the news related to the case and had created a Twitter handle by the name of @giyu44. Using this newly created handle, he tweeted on Wednesday that police arrested the wrong persons in the case (related to three arrests by Mumbai police).”
To be sure, Bishnoi’s confession is not admissible during trial.
This is the first arrest in the case by Delhi Police. Two FIRs related to the case were filed by Delhi and Mumbai police.
The app and its circulation on social media channels had sparked outrage after which different people filed complaints with Delhi and Mumbai police.
Earlier, the Mumbai police arrested three persons in the case, Sweta Singh (18), her friend Mayank Rawat (20), both residents of Uttarakhand, and Vishal Kumar Jha (21), an engineering student from Bengaluru. The three allegedly shared the app and promoted it on social media handles, according to the Mumbai police.
On Wednesday evening, many users on social media had called out Twitter user @giyu22 after the person claimed to be the owner of the controversial app on GitHub. The user @giyu22 had also claimed on Twitter that the other suspects arrested by Mumbai police did not know he had misused their accounts. Though HT could not independently verify the posts made on Twitter by @giyu22, DCP Malhotra confirmed that Bishnoi was the user and had written those tweets.
Police are questioning Bishnoi to know why he created the app. Police confirmed Bishnoi had no criminal record.
Officials of the Delhi and Mumbai police are likely to share developments related to the information to connect the dots between these four arrested persons. Bishnoi told police that he knew at least two of the three persons arrested by Mumbai police.
Ankur Jain, superintendent of police (Jorhat), confirmed Bishnoi was arrested on Wednesday night. “He is a student of VIT’s Bhopal campus. He was attending classes online. He had returned to Jorhat from Rajasthan or somewhere near Delhi on December 25. Delhi Police were tracking him and asked for our help in arresting him,” Jain said.
Bishnoi, police said, is a resident of Digambar Chowk in Jorhat town. He lived with his parents and two sisters. The family has been residing in Jorhat for over 30 years, Jain added.
Vellore Institute of Technology officials confirmed that Bishnoi is a student of the institute’s Bhopal campus. Registrar, KK Nair, said, “He was attending online classes from home due to Covid 19 situation. He did not use the computer laboratory.” On Thursday, an institute official confirmed that Bishnoi has been suspended from VIT.
DCP Malhotra said Bishnoi was arrested after police analysed “ raw data” and took “ technical details”.
Delhi Police had earlier said that they were unable to track the suspects in this case because GitHuB, a US-based company, had allegedly not shared details of its users. Police had said that GitHub had asked them to follow the MLAT procedure if they wanted information on the IP address of the user.
GitHub did not respond to a questionnaire sent by HT.
Delhi Police had on Wednesday got the Centre’s approval to seek details from GitHub under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). Under the MLAT process, a request seeking information from companies that are settled outside India is sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is a treaty which enables cross border investigation, especially when police are tracking a particular user/s, who may have used platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Gmail to issue threats to defame people on social media.
To be sure, there is another case involving a similar app by another name, which is still pending investigation. An FIR in that case, where photographs of Muslim women were uploaded with derogatory comments, registered in July is still pending investigation.
Delhi Police have maintained that they are unable to proceed in the investigation because GitHub has refused to share information. Delhi Police have been severely criticised for their handling of these two cases. The Delhi Commission of Women in a statement on Monday had said that the police inaction in the previous case had emboldened the culprits to come up with a similar app by using a different name this time.
