New Delhi: Aumkareshwar Thakur, the alleged 25-year-old creator of Sulli Deals app, has revealed during interrogation that he put Muslim women on “auction” as the “decline” of Hindu culture angered him, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the Delhi Police said Thakur is a hardcore ‘Trad’, who spent his nights on social media platforms among Trad groups talking about how it “pains and angers” him to see the “decline” of traditional Hindu culture.
Trads (short for traditionalists) are online groups that claim to be hardcore ‘protectors’ of the Sanatana Dharma, who are seen to be highly radicalised.
“Aumkareshwar Thakur has said that he has been been deeply hurt over decline in the Hindu culture and that he believes in hardcore Hindutva, which he thinks is the purest form of Hinduism. Over time, reading and sharing such thoughts on Trad groups, he along with others of the ‘Tradsmahasabha’ group finally decided to demean Muslim women by putting them on sale,” a source in the Delhi Police said.
Thakur revealed that he got “furious over the state of affairs in the country and felt like he must do something to uphold the beliefs of the Trads”, the source said.
“Thakur said that he is angry that ‘crusaders’ and ‘invader Muslims’ ruined the country, that they demolished the Hindu religion and culture, corrupted it and something had to be done about it. He said that he couldn’t tolerate the Manusmriti and the Purana Vedas being unfollowed and made fun of and not treated with respect,” a second source said.
“They (referring to Muslims) have ruined everything for us,” the second source quoted him as saying.
During interrogation, Thakur said he couldn’t accept that “Muslims accounts on Twitter and Facebook handles were talking about Hindu culture”, and also that it “triggered him when he saw their comments on certain social media posts”, the first source said.
“Thakur said he couldn’t tolerate it, like the rest and so all the members of the Trad group decided to target Muslim women. As revenge, the Trad members identified several vocal Muslim women to express their anger,” the first source said.
Thakur, who hails from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was supposed to get married this year, after turning 26. According to the first source, Thakur, an IT expert like Bulli Bai ‘creator’ Neeraj Bishnoi, “works at an US-based tech company and would tell his parents he is working the night when he would instead be busy on Trad groups”.
“He would sleep throughout the day and hardly step out,” the source said.
Thakur didn’t do it alone, others identified Muslim women targets
Sources said Thakur has revealed details of the online group ‘Tradmahasabha’, where it was decided to auction women. However, Thakur didn’t do it all alone. While he did the coding, others helped him identify the Muslim women that were to be targeted.
Bishnoi, the alleged 20-year-old ‘mastermind’ of ‘Bulli Bai’ app, who was arrested, like Thakur, by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of the Delhi Police, was also part of this group. He had earlier ‘auctioned’ Congress’ national media coordinator Hasiba Amin, days before Sulli Deals put women on sale last year.
“Thakur has revealed 30 Twitter handles — all fake IDs – that were part of the Trad group that decided to auction those women with the intention of demeaning Muslims. However, he hasn’t been able to reveal their actual identities as they only interacted through these groups and didn’t know each other personally,” the second source said.
“Police are now tracing around 10 such individuals. However, it is yet to be determined what the exact number of people involved is, as in these cases, one person has multiple Twitter IDs,” the source added.
“All of the members of the group contributed in research — finding the Muslim women they wanted to target. They were selective,” the second source said.
Sources said that they have traced the now-deleted Twitter IDs revealed by Thakur, through archives.
“As of now, attempts are being made to recover data from his laptop as he had deleted everything. This is being done by imaging the system bit by bit through reviving the existing file and deleted files. After extraction, the data will be analysed which will provide further details,” the second source said.
According to sources, Thakur removed all digital footprint after uproar over Sulli Deals. He wasn’t a part of the Bulli Bai app that came into focus earlier this month. Speaking to ThePrint after his arrest, Thakur’s father, Akhilesh Thakur, said that his social media activity had reduced in the last one year.
This story firsta ppeared on theprint.in
