Mumbai

Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested a 21-year-old engineering student after questioning him for hours in connection with the 'Bulli Bai' app case in which morphed photographs of Muslim women were uploaded for auction on the app on the GitHub platform, a police officer said.

The student was earlier detained by Mumbai Police in Bengaluru and was brought to Mumbai for questioning.

"Deputy Commissioner of Police of Mumbai Police Cyber Cell himself questioned the accused which went on for almost 10 hours," said a police official.

After questioning the first suspect for hours, police on Tuesday detained another suspect in connection with the case.

On Monday, Mumbai Police had filed a first information report (FIR) against unknown persons in the case. Earlier, on Sunday, West Mumbai Cyber Police station registered a case against the 'Bulli Bai' app developers and Twitter handles that promoted the app.

The case was registered against the unknown culprits under sections 153(A) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion etc), 153(B) (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 295(A) (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), 354D (stalking), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 500 (criminal defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of Information Technology Act.

The matter hit the headlines on January 1 when several Muslim women found themselves on 'auction' on the app.Following an uproar Opposition leaders including Congress' Rahul Gandhi and Shiv Sena MP, Priyanka Chaturvedi had urged the government to crack down on the platform and punish those behind it.

Information and Technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that GitHub had blocked the user behind the app.