Who Is Ismat Ara? Investigative Journalist Files Complaint Against 'Auction Site'

Who Is Ismat Ara: She is an investigative journalist with The Wire who filed a complaint (an FIR) with the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police against mobile application ‘Bulli Bai’ for displaying her doctored photos for sale online. According to a report, many Muslim women besides Ismat Ara have their doctored images uploaded on the portal.

Here's everything you need to know about Ismat Ara

• Sharing a screenshot of the portal with her pic on it she tweeted on 1 Jan, 2022 from her twitter handle, "It is very sad that as a Muslim woman you have to start your new year with this sense of fear & disgust. Of course it goes without saying that I am not the only one being targeted in this new version of #sullideals. Screenshot sent by a friend this morning. Happy new year." Here's the tweet. 
• “Social media being a form of public expression cannot be used to demean and derogate women in general and Muslim women in particular by misogynist sections of society. It is indeed disappointing to see the impunity with which such hate mongers continue to target Muslim women, without fear of any sanction whatsoever.”, she wrote further in the tweet.
• She has also filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell of the Delhi Police seeking the registration of an FIR under IPC Sections 153A (Promoting enmity between groups on the grounds of religion), 153B (imputations prejudicial to national integration), 354A (sexual harassment), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (words, sounds or gestures intending to insult the modesty of women), to be read with Sections 66 (sending grossly insensitive information through a computer resource) and 67 (sending lascivious or lewd matter) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
• She also referred to Microsoft-owned content sharing platform GitHub in her complaint as the Bulli Deals domain was hosted there only.
• Ismat Ara won the the Laadli Award in 2021 in the web investigative story category for her reportage on the Hathras gangrape case.
• She has 88.1K followers on Twitter.
• She has pursued her Masters in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia.
• In the year 2017, she joined The Hindu newspaper and then went on to write for various publications like Newslaundry, BBC Hindi, Firstpost and now The Wire. Read more about her.