'Sulli Deals' Harassment: Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi Writes To Centre Urging Action

Urging strict action in the Sulli Deals bullying case that targeted Indian Muslim women online in recent weeks, Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi has written to the central government, as per reports on Friday.

Chaturvedi, in a letter addressed to newly appointed Information Technology (IT) minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, brought to notice a YouTube account by the name 'Liberal Doge' that has been identified as leading a cyber harassment campaign against minority women by 'auctioning' them on social media. Read about the case.

"People were bidding and rating women based on their physical appearance and wrote degrading comments... This horrifying incident has left the women scarred and troubled... The misuse of social and digital media to harass and attack the dignity of a woman is disheartening," she

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi writes to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw requesting him to take strict actions against a YouTube channel "that ran a live auction of women of a particular community" & an app that had posted pics of several women from their social media websites. pic.twitter.com/ylw398mQ1p

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Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi writes to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw requesting him to take strict actions against a YouTube channel "that ran a live auction of women of a particular community" & an app that had posted pics of several women from their social media websites. pic.twitter.com/ylw398mQ1p

— ANI (@ANI) July 30, 2021

What Is The Sulli Deals Bullying Case?

In the cases registered for targeted harassment of Muslim women online via a GitHub-platformed app named Sulli Deals, complainants have alleged lack of action by authorities. Earlier this month, between July 7 and 8, FIRs were registered in the cyberbullying case in Delhi-NCR and a notice was sent to GitHub.

Photos of some Muslim women had non-consensually been taken to be published on the Sulli Deals app as 'deal of the day.' The harassment had been condemned by top bodies like the Editor's Guild of India and the National Commission for Women (NCW).

Survivors in the case, speaking to SheThePeople, in July had said, "I have forgotten what it was like to be safe on the internet... This is happening with greater frequency because this is the same group of people essentially. Also because no action was taken against them in May." Two months ago, similar 'auction' harassment had played out with the Liberal Doge account at the centre of it. Read about that here.

According to Indian Express, cyber authorities are claiming a roadblock in the Sulli Deals case owing to a lack of response from US-based GitHub. No arrests have been made yet, reports say, with the woman survivors awaiting a breakthrough in investigation.