Main conspirator in Github case held in Assam: Police
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Thursday said they have arrested a 21-year-old man from Assam for allegedly creating the controversial app where doctored photographs of Muslim women were uploaded with derogatory messages. Police identified the arrested person as Neeraj Bishnoi, 21, a second-year B Tech student of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Bhopal.
On Wednesday night, a team of officers from the police’s IFSO (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations) unit reached Jorhat in Assam, and arrested Bishnoi, the son of a grocer.
DCP KPS Malhotra, chief of the IFSO, which is Delhi Police’s cybercrime unit, said Bishnoi was the “main conspirator and creator” of the app. “He is the mastermind who created the app on Github. We have seized his laptop and other electronic devices. We have recovered evidence, which shows that he created the app.”
He was brought to Delhi and produced before a city judge, who sent him to 7-day police custody. DCP Malhotra said Bishnoi confessed he developed the app some time in November and uploaded it in the last week of December. “Bishnoi had created different handles on Twitter to promote the app. He was constantly monitoring the news related to the case and had created a Twitter handle by the name of @giyu44. Using this newly created handle, he tweeted on Wednesday that police arrested the wrong persons in the case (related to three arrests by Mumbai police).”
To be sure, Bishnoi’s confession is not admissible during trial.
This is the first arrest in the case by Delhi Police. Two FIRS related to the case were filed by Delhi and Mumbai police.
Earlier, the Mumbai police arrested three persons in the case, Sweta Singh (18), her friend
Mayank Rawat (20), both residents of Uttarakhand, and Vishal Kumar Jha (21), an engineering student from Bengaluru.
On Wednesday, many users on social media had called out Twitter user @giyu22 after the person claimed to be the owner of the controversial app on Github. The user @giyu22 had also claimed on Twitter that the other suspects arrested by Mumbai Police did not know he had misused their accounts. Though HT could not independently verify the posts made on Twitter by @giyu22, DCP Malhotra confirmed that Bishnoi was the user and had written those tweets. Ankur Jain, SP (Jorhat), said: “Bishnoi is a student of VIT’S Bhopal campus. He was attending classes online...”