Sullying young minds

The arrest of four young suspects in the heinous Bulli Bai case points to the disturbing trend of the vitriol perpetrated by the politics of hate having seeped into the minds of a new generation that has grown up in an atmosphere prickly with communal polarisation. The rogue elements in this tech-savvy generation seem to be skilled in evading or outpacing the cyber cops as they master the tricks of the ever-changing cyberworld. The Bulli Bai sordid online drama, woven around the derogatory mock auction of certain vocal Muslim women that erupted on January 1, is an action replay of a similarly hideous Sulli Deals of July last year and on whose trail the law enforcers still are. Both the apps were hosted by the same platform, the California-based GitHub.

The racket seems to be widespread as those arrested include the alleged ‘mastermind and creator’ of the egregious app, an engineering student from Assam, two students from Uttarakhand and one from Bengaluru. The accused allegedly used Sikh names to hide their identity. It is indeed distressing that youngsters — in their late teens or early twenties — should be misled or lured into misusing their talents to ostensibly bully and silence women of a minority community by spreading hateful and insulting comments against them on social media. Notably, among the targeted women, whose morphed photos were used, are journalists, lawyers and the mother of a missing Muslim student. Muddling the dirty tale further and one that may fly in the cops’ face is the claim of a Twitter user from Nepal that he is the brains behind Bulli Bai.

The law enforcement authorities need to up their game and get to the bottom of the case, the key to which is likely held by GitHub. With cybercrimes related to stalking, bullying, intimidating and blackmailing on the rise — over 50,000 were reported in 2020 as per NCRB data — a case is made out for bigger investments in cyber experts and budgets to curb crime. At the same time, every girl entering the virtual world must be armed with awareness of cyber safety rules and not be afraid of reporting anything untoward.