Hana Khan (Pilot), Fatima Khan (Journalist) among 83 Muslim Women ‘up for sale’ on Fake app – FIR by Delhi Police

New Delhi: Dozens of Muslim women in India found they had been put up for sale online app last Sunday.

Commercial pilot, Hana Khan, whose name was also on the list on an app “Sulli Deals”, that had taken publicly available pictures of women and created profiles, describing the women as “deals of the day”. on app and website, Hana Khan said, “I counted 83 names. There could be more, They’d taken my photo from Twitter and it had my user name. This app was running for 20 days and we didn’t even know about it. It sent chills down my spine.” Ms Khan said she had been targeted was because of her religion. “I’m a Muslim woman who’s seen and heard,” she said. “And they want to silence us.”

Indian journalist Fatima Khan, who was also among the women targeted on GitHub, said the fake “auction” fitted into this pattern. “How is this acceptable? What will be the punishment, if any, meted out to the people who made this list?” and “Muslim men are lynched, Muslim women are harassed and sold online. When will this end?” she tweeted.

The app pretended to offer users the chance to buy a “Sulli” – a derogatory slang term used by right-wing trolls for Muslim women. Photos of more than 80 women were reportedly uploaded on app on GitHub, an open software development platform, under the title “Sulli deal of the day”. “Sulli” is derogatory slang for Muslim women.

However, there was no real auction of any kind – the purpose of the app was just to degrade and humiliate.

Didn't check Twitter last night. Woke up this morning to realise my name, along with those of many other Muslim women was up on GitHub as a list of "Sulli Deals". Thankfully by the time I came across it, it had been taken down. But just the screenshots sent shivers down my spine. pic.twitter.com/CGXivEyjyC
— Fatima Khan (@khanthefatima) July 5, 2021

GitHub – the web platform that hosted the open source app – shut it down quickly following complaints. “We suspended user accounts following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies,” the company said in a statement.

Delhi Police Special on Thursday, 8 July, registered case against an against unknown persons because they do not know the identity of the perpetrators over the ‘Sulli Deals’ app controversy. A case FIR under section 354-A of IPC has been registered and the investigation is underway, the police said.

The National Commission for Women on Thursday sought a detailed action taken report from the Delhi Police within 10 days.

The Editors Guild of India considers it reprehensible that images of women journalists and other professionals from minority community were posted online and shared over social media, in a denigrating manner, putting them “up for auction”.

Thank you @IndEditorsGuild for this statement. I want to thank all the journalists who have reached out to me in the last few days with words of solidarity. Many vocal Muslim women were targeted and harassed precisely to shut them up. I know them and I know they won't keep quiet. https://t.co/N9nnKmeBw2
— Fatima Khan (@khanthefatima) July 7, 2021