Refusing bail to a 19-year-old woman accused Shweta Singh in the Bulli Bai hateapp case where Muslim women were virtually ‘auctioned’ early this year, a sessions court said in its detailed order that the accused tried getting the Sikh community targeted, and that here the larger interest of society is at stake.
While promoting the contentious app on social media, the accused persons had used twitter handles that deliberately portrayed that they belonged to the Sikh community, when in fact they did not.
The court said the record also shows active involvement in propagating and disseminating information relating to women of a particular community.
In similar observations as it made for her co-accused 21-year-old Vishal Jha while it rejected his bail earlier, the court said Singh and her co-accused are members of a group chat ‘Trad Mahasabha’ and that as a result of discussion on the group the app was created on the GitHub platform. At this stage, it said her role cannot be bifurcated from that of the rest of the accused.
Singh’s advocate Chittranjan Das had argued on Singh’s right to freedom of expression. Additional Sessions Judge Sanjashree J Gharat said the right guaranteed is subject to reasonable restrictions. “The accused along with co-accused are found committing acts of defaming womanhood,” the court said.
Prosecutor Kalpana Hire had strongly opposed bail to Singh and told the court that she was operating several social media accounts and had posted provocative content.
