To find people behind ‘Sulli Deal’, is only a matter of willingness”: Senior editor Pooja Chaudhuri

To find the people behind ‘Sulli Deal’ at this point of time, is only a matter of willingness, says senior editor of Alt News Pooja Chaudhuri.

In a series of tweets, she has shared a detailed report on who is behind the ‘Sulli Deals?’

‘Sulli’ is a derogatory slang word used by the Hindu right-wing against Muslim women in India.

Pooja Chaudhuri had concluded saying, “To find the people behind ‘Sulli Deal’, at this point in time, is only a matter of willingness.”

On July 4 this year, dozens of Muslim women in India found themselves “up for sale” on an app that went by the name “Sulli Deals”. The app uploaded publically available pictures of Muslim women, describing them as “deals of the day.”

“The GitHub account @sullideals was created on June 13. That same day, now-suspended Twitter account @sullideals shared several pictures of Muslim women. The user’s bio carried the link to ‘Sulli Deals’ on GitHub,” she said.

Following massive outrage on Indian social media, Github Pages (github.io), the platform where the app was hosted immediately took it down.

Chaudhuri tweeted, “Sulli Deals became popular on July 4 when several women on Twitter found their pictures on the app. That same day @sdfrgt4rf bragged about creating the app. He shared screenshots of the app’s backend and source code, proving that he had access.”

The next day, @sullideals786 also claimed association.

Chaudhuri further noted that on July 22 @dankchikitsak associated with one Krunal Patel shifted the blame to a Muslim youth Zaved Alam, claiming he confessed to creating ‘Sulli Deals’. “But the alleged confession happened on July 24 (see Telegram chat date). How did he know about a chat from the future?” She questioned.

“The alleged Telegram chat took place between Zaved Alam and a user named @not_sameen. (@dankchikitsak had shared screenshots of the chat on July 25 after speaking about it on July 22 first.)” She tweeted.

The account @not_sameen was an imposter handle, the senior editor said adding, Krunal Patel himself told AltNews it was run by a man. “A Pakistani woman’s images were misused by the handle. The same Pakistani woman was earlier “rated” on a YouTube Livestream by Ritesh Jha aka @LiberalDogeReal,”

Newslaundry had published a piece on Ritesh Jha, a 23-year-old from Bihar. “@LiberalDogeB (Jha’s second Twitter account) had cheered @sdfrgt4rf for creating “Sulli Deals” on July 4. Twenty days later, he blamed Zaved Alam,” she tweeted.

Pooja Chaudhuri alleged that the police can track down the Twitter handles that claimed responsibility (@sullideals, @sdfrgt4rf, @sullideals786), just the way the Mumbai police found the youth who posted a rape threat to Virat Kohli’s daughter.

Two domains were also registered during the app’s creation – https://t.co/FwnS6VY6B5 and https://t.co/iijsJ3P6Sa – through GoDaddy, she said sharing the links. “The account @mightyeagle30 that claimed to be part of ‘Sulli Deals’ team had https://t.co/iijsJ3P6Sa as their Twitter account bio.”

The police could reach out to GoDaddy, the registrar of the aforementioned domains, to find out payment details, including credit card details, to track down those who registered the domain names.

Therefore, to find the people behind ‘Sulli Deal’, at this point in time, “Is only a matter of willingness,” she said.

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