Twitter accounts hacked: accused
MUMBAI : Mumbai police on Monday informed a local court that Neeraj Bishnoi, the prime accused in the Bulli Bai case, was using the Twitter handles of Shweta Singh (18) and Mayank Rawat (20), both arrested from Uttarakhand, but the two were aware of what Bishnoi was doing.
The west region Cyber police station on Monday produced the two Uttarakhand youths before a metropolitan magistrate court at Bandra and remanded them to police custody till Friday. The third accused Vishal Kumar Jha (21) was sent to judicial custody.
The lawyers representing the three accused argued that they were innocent and were falsely implicated and claimed that the Twitter accounts of their clients were hacked.
It is pertinent to note that during interrogation by the Delhi police, Bishnoi had also claimed that he was handling Shweta Singh’s Twitter account.
Countering their claims, the Mumbai cyber police informed the court that the accused got an OTP every time someone asked them to allow access to Twitter handles, thus, they were fully aware of what they were doing. The police also revealed that the accused were using Protonmail in order to hide their identity.
Cops are also checking if the accused were using VPN (Virtual Private Network) to ensure that their location was not traced and trying to find a connection to the Sulli Deals matter. Singh and Rawat used more than 10 Twitter accounts each, the police said.
Investigating officer Inspector Maushmi Patil sought more time from the court claiming that a lot of data is stored on the four mobile phones and laptops seized from the accused, analysing which was taking a lot of time. However, the defence lawyers opposed the police’s plea for extension of police custody claiming that the main accused has been arrested by Delhi police and their clients are students and first-time offenders.
Jha tested positive for Covid and has been admitted to Kalina quarantine centre.