Niraj Bishnoi is the fourth person to be arrested in the Bulli Bai case. (File)
Niraj Bishnoi, alleged to be the creator of the Bulli Bai app that posted pictures of Muslim women, including many prominent personalities, "for auction", is an intelligent student who is loner and keeps himself glued to his laptop, his father Dasrath Bishnoi said on Friday.
The senior Bishnoi said that after getting the free laptop from the Assam government under a scheme to encourage students who score high marks in their class 10 examination, his 21-year-old son became addicted to the device and practically locked himself inside his room since the first lockdown in March 2020.
"What he does, we do not know at all. Niraj used to keep to himself since his childhood days. He hardly has any friends," Mr Bishnoi, who owns a commercial pickup van, told news agency PTI.
He recounted that when Niraj was a student at Nkem Science Academy, where he studied in classes 11 and 12, the principal had several times seized his laptop.
"I had to go to the Academy many times to get the laptop back. I don't know what he used to do with it," said Mr Bishnoi.
Pleading innocence, the anxious father said, "We do not know anything about who is behind it (the app). We found him always busy with the laptop. We are praying to God that he returns home soon as he has to sit for his second semester examination next month".
Niraj is at present a second year student of computer science in VIT, Bhopal. He was educated in a Christian missionary school and secured 86 per cent in his class 10 board exams and 82 per cent in the higher secondary (class 12) examination, before qualifying for BE in computer science and going on for further studies at the Bhopal institute.
He was arrested in the early morning hours of Thursday morning from Jorhat by Delhi police in association with their Assam counterparts.
Asked about Niraj's arrest, his father said three Delhi police personnel along with their counterparts from Assam Police had reached their home at Digambar chowk in Rajamaidan area in Jorhat district at around 11 pm on January 5 and interrogated them.
"He was taken away early next morning," he said.
Niraj is the fourth person to be arrested in the Bulli Bai case.
He has two siblings - sisters who are elder to him. One has passed MSc in Mathematics from Jorhat Institute of Science and Technology, while the other one is a law student at Noida. His mother runs a government fair price shop in Jorhat.
A senior Madhya Pradesh police official said on Thursday that Niraj is a second year engineering student and is known to be a bright student. But he had never attended in person classes at his engineering college.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)