The Mumbai Police on Monday told a city court that three persons accused in the case related to the “Bulli Bai” app, used for “online auction” of Muslim women had intentionally used fake Sikh names, Bar and Bench reported. The accused persons did so to create enmity between Sikhs and Muslims, the police alleged.

The police made the submissions while opposing the bail pleas of Vishal Kumar Jha, Shweta Singh and Mayank Rawat. The police told the court that as per preliminary investigation, the three accused were also involved with the “Sulli Deals” app, which was used to target Muslim women last year.

Both “Bulli” and “Sulli” are derogatory terms used to refer to Muslim women. The accused persons took photos of the Muslim women from their social media accounts without permission and displayed them on the apps “for sale”.

The “Sulli Deals” app emerged in July, and “Bulli Bai” on January 1. The apps have been taken down from hosting platform GitHub following outrage on social media.

The Mumbai Police had arrested Jha, Singh and Rawat after some women filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell earlier this month. Neeraj Bishnoi, allegedly the main conspirator in the case, has been arrested by the Delhi Police. Last week, a Delhi court had denied bail to Bishnoi, who is in judicial custody.

At Monday’s hearing on bail pleas of Jha, Singh and Rawat, the police submitted to the court that the three were very active on social media and used to post content that provoked the breach of peace, Bar and Bench reported.

They used Sikh names for their social media handles and used words from the Punjabi language while targeting Muslim women, the police alleged.

The accused persons have admitted to have used Twitter handles @giyu84, @giyu44 and @giyu94, which were used on the Github platform to set up the “Bulli Bai” app, police told the court in an affidavit. The three had multiple other accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Gmail and many of them have been suspended for posting defamatory content, the affidavit stated.

The court will hear arguments of the accused persons’ counsel on Tuesday, according to Bar and Bench.