Clubhouse App Chat Case: Delhi Police Arrests 19-Year-Old Man From Lucknow

Earlier, the DCW had issued a notice to Delhi Police's Cyber Crime cell, seeking an FIR against persons making obscene comments against Muslim women on the Clubhouse app.

Lucknow: The Delhi Police has arrested a 19-year-old man from Lucknow in connection with a chat on the Clubhouse app in which objectionable and abusive comments were passed against women. Police said that a team was sent to Lucknow and Rahul Kapoor, who registered himself with the user-ID ‘Bismillah’ on the app, was apprehended.

Kapoor claims that he created an audio chat room on Clubhouse on the instructions of a person, he identified as ‘Sallos’, Deputy Commissioner of Police KPS Malhotra told news agency PTI. The officer said Kapoor also told the team that he handed over the chat room’s moderator key to ‘Sallos’.

The man’s mobile phone has been seized and he will be joining investigations at Delhi by evening, police said.

Earlier, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had issued a notice to Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime cell on Tuesday, seeking an FIR against persons making obscene comments against Muslim women on the ‘Clubhouse’ app.

Meanwhile, the Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police’s crime branch had also made three arrests in connection with the case. Police said that all three arrests were made from Haryana and Faridabad and they will be produced before a local court there for transit remand.

According to police sources, the arrests were made late on Thursday night, after a Mumbai-based organisation had lodged a complaint with Mumbai Police, seeking deactivation of the Clubhouse app on Wednesday.

Preliminary probe revealed that two chat rooms were created in the Clubhouse app, one on 16th January and the other on 19th January. “There were many participants in the chat room involved in giving derogatory statements about women and talking about auctioning female body parts,” said Milind Bharambe, Joint CP Crime.

On Wednesday, the Delhi police had also written to the Clubhouse app and search engine Google, seeking details about the organiser of the alleged audio group chat in which “obscene comments were made against Muslim women”.