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Hate app case: Mumbai Police object to bail pleas, court says will pass order Thursday

The public prosecutor added they deliberately committed the crime through multiple Twitter accounts using fake identities and made use of proton mail to communicate with each other while hiding their identities.

The Mumbai Police also told the court they will seek custody of Niraj Bishnoi, the creator of a hate app. (Express Photo/File)The Mumbai Police also told the court they will seek custody of Niraj Bishnoi, the creator of a hate app. (Express Photo/File)

The Bandra magistrate court Tuesday afternoon further posted the hearing on the bail pleas made by the three students arrested in the hate app case to Thursday for its order as Mumbai Police objected to their bail applications and said they wanted further custody of Vishal Kumar Jha, 21.

Jha was sent to the Arthur Road Jail Sunday after his quarantine period was over after post recovery from Covid-19. Shweta Singh, 18, another accused, is presently lodged at Byculla woman’s jail.

The third accused, Mayank Rawat, 21, continues to be lodged at the quarantine centre in Kalina after he tested positive last week. The magistrate court was to pass an order on their bail pleas Tuesday but the public prosecutor objected stating they committed a crime, which could have created a law and order problem between two communities.

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The public prosecutor added they deliberately committed the crime through multiple Twitter accounts using fake identities and made use of proton mail to communicate with each other while hiding their identities.

The Mumbai Police also told the court they will seek custody of Niraj Bishnoi, the creator of a hate app and want to question both Jha and Bishnoi.

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Meanwhile, Rawat’s advocate Sandeep Sherkhane said, “Merely having 4-5 email ids or Twitter accounts is not a crime. Proton/vpn emails are also traceable and the cyber cell has sufficient technology for which custody is not required. The evidence is technical in nature and cannot be tampered as the laptop mobile etc are already in police custody. The police have access to the email and twitter accounts. Hence no purpose will be served by keeping a young student behind the bars.”

Arti Deshmukh, the lawyer representing Jha said, “The police also objected to the bail. The court said it will now pass an order Thursday.” Further fearing that Jha will be arrested by Delhi Police in a case registered for the same crime, his lawyer Shivam Deshmukh applied for an anticipatory bail before a sessions court in Delhi.

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Shivam said, “The anticipatory bail application plea is made on the grounds that my client is a mere follower of the application and not the creator, no antecedents of any nature. All evidence is collected by Mumbai Police and he is ready to cooperate with conditions given by the court.”

Meanwhile, a team from Mumbai Crime Branch’s cyber police station has left for Delhi to take custody of Niraj Bishnoi, 21, the alleged creator of the hate app and Aumkareshwar Thakur, 26, the alleged creator of a similar app. The duo was recently arrested by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.

The cyber police suspect that the three accused arrested by them for promoting the hate app may be connected with the previous app of similar nature. A senior crime branch official confirmed the development to The Indian Express.

Bishnoi, who is the main accused in the latest hate app case, is a native of Assam. He and his aides collected personal details and photos of 126 Muslim women and posted obscene content and “auctioned” them on the app.

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Bishnoi is a second-year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology, Bhopal and was suspended from college after his arrest on January 6. Using the pseudo name “Giyu”, a Japanese gaming character, Bishnoi concealed his real identity on social media.

He interacted with the three accused – Jha, a second-year engineering student, Rawat, a BSC student, and Singh, an HSC pass out — as Giyu and they did not know his real identity.

On his instructions, the three uploaded content from the app on Twitter and named the accounts in such a way so that it would appear that the Sikh community is behind the app.

Through Bishnoi, on January 9, the intelligence fusion and strategic operations (IFSO) unit of Special cell managed to track down Aumkareshwar Thakur, a native of Indore. He has done his BCA from IPS Academy, Indore.

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The cyber police suspect that the three accused arrested by them are also linked to Thakur and hence seek his custody. Bishnoi told the police that he got the idea of creating the hate app from Thakur. Although an FIR was registered against the previous hate app in August last year, Thakur was never found.

In December, Bishnoi created the hate app which led to an uproar following which, the police cracked down on the accused which eventually led to Thakur’s arrest.

First uploaded on: 18-01-2022 at 16:52 IST
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