On the night of July 4, Afreen Fatima participated in an online forum about the persecution of Muslims in India. No sooner had she wrapped up her session than her mobile phone was flooded with messages, informing the 23-year-old student activist that she had been ‘put up for sale’ on a fake online auction.
And she was not alone. Photographs of more than 80 other Muslim women, including students, activists and journalists, had been uploaded on an app called “Sulli deals” without their knowledge.
The creators of the platform offered visitors a chance to claim a “Sulli” – a derogatory term used by right-wing Hindu trolls for Muslim women – calling them “deals of the day”.
“That night, I didn’t reply to the people who messaged me. I just logged out of my Twitter. I didn’t have the energy to respond,” Fatima told Al Jazeera from her home in Allahabad in northern Uttar Pradesh state.
She said that the incident came on a day a Hindu far-right man called for the abduction of Muslim women at a gathering in Pataudi, about 60km (31 miles) from New Delhi. “I was just so disturbed; I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
Thousands of miles away in New York, 25-year-old Hiba Beg had just returned from enjoying Independence Day celebrations in the city. That’s when she discovered her profile was also up for virtual auction on “Sulli deals”.
Even the physical distance from home in India was not enough to protect her from the immediate “feelings of dehumanisation and defeat”, said Beg, a student of policy at Columbia University.
GitHub, which hosted the app, took it down after public outrage and complaints. “We suspended user accounts following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies,” a GitHub spokesperson told Al Jazeera via email.
“GitHub has longstanding policies against content and conduct involving harassment, discrimination, and inciting violence.”
Police complaint filed
On July 8, the Delhi Police registered a police complaint (first information report) after the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) and the National Commission for Women called for an investigation into the matter following days of outrage largely by Muslim women online.
Delhi Police PRO Chinmay Biswal said an investigation has been launched. “Notices have been sent to GitHub to share the relevant details,” Biswal told Al Jazeera. A week after the app was discovered, no arrest has been made.
