The cyber cell of Delhi Police is probing the case
related to ‘Sulli Deals’ app and website that had stolen publicly available
pictures of Muslim women on their social media handles and created their
profiles, describing them as ‘deals of the day’. 

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What is ‘Sulli Deal’?

On the open-source website called ‘Sulli for Sale’,
personal photos of women’s Twitter handles were shared and ‘auctioned’, which
was called the ‘Sulli Deal’.

The app, hosted on GitHub — an open-source platform
— pretended that the women were available to trade sexual favours for money.

The women whose names featured on the app include
journalists, researchers and other professionals.

Why was the app made?

The people who made the app under fake identities
put up names and publicly available pictures of Muslim women.

According to one of the women who featured in the
list and spoke to the BBC, people were bidding Rs 5 and Rs 10 on the women and
were rating them on their physical attributes and even threatening rape.

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Host platform’s response

GitHub, the platform where the app was hosted, took
down the app upon receiving numerous complaints. “We suspended user accounts
following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate
our policies,” the company said in a statement.

What does the word ‘Sulli’ mean?

In Islam, the word ‘Sulli’ is a derogatory term for
women. The word has found repeated usage during communal conflagrations in
India. 

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What was the action taken?

The incident left the women
who made the list in deep trauma. Several of the women, including a commercial
pilot, have lodged complaints with the police. Police are yet to make any
arrests in the case.