Quratulain Rehbar was on a public bus in northern India earlier this month when a friend alerted her that her picture had appeared on an app, where she was being advertised as for sale.
Rehbar, a 27-year-old journalist, is one of about 100 lawyers, activists and other prominent Muslim women in India whose photos appeared on the app, called Bulli Bai, without their consent.
The intent “was to sexually harass, disgrace, humiliate and hate on women for speaking out against the government,” said Rehbar, who is from Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region that is the subject of a territorial dispute between India and neighboring Pakistan.
Online harassment is a growing problem in India, researchers say, with women and girls disproportionately affected.
A 2020 study of female politicians on Twitter by Amnesty International India found that Muslim women and women from outside the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were greater targets.
It is unclear whether the two apps are linked, but the first one also put prominent Muslim women up for “auction” using photos lifted from their social media profiles.
Khan, 26, said she wasn’t surprised that a second app had appeared, since the first one spurred little legal action
Rashmi Karandikar, the deputy commissioner of that unit, said three people — Shweta Singh, 18; Mayank Rawat, 21; and Vishal Kumar, also 21 — had been arrested for questioning in connection with the app.
But the problem goes beyond Hindu nationalism, she said
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