Kasaragod: If the FIR is to be believed, Kerala Police officers on vehicle patrol spotted a scooter being driven “recklessly and carelessly” on the NH 66 service road near Cherkala in Kasaragod. Sub-inspector Anoop S flagged down the scooter and, on checking, found that the driver was only 16 years old. He impounded the vehicle and booked Majida Nasreen, the boy’s 19-year-old sister and the scooter's owner, under sections carrying up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of ₹25,000.

Now, armed with CCTV footage of the incident, Majida, a BPharm student, is preparing to sue Kerala Police and seek compensation for harassment and defamation. Her mother, Raseena Mohammed Kunhi, has already written to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is also the home minister, and the State Police Complaints Authority, urging action against Vidyanagar sub-inspector Anoop for what she alleges is a case fabricated out of thin air.

According to the family, this is what happened on December 7. Majida had a 30-minute training session at a pharmacy on Berka Road near Cherkala, about 4km from her home in Cheroor. As it was already past six in the evening, Raseena asked her younger son to accompany her. Around 6.15 pm, the two reached Berka Road on the scooter -- Majida riding it, with her younger brother sitting behind her. Both wore helmets.

After parking the scooter, the two walked to the pharmacy. Around eight minutes later, the boy walked back to the scooter. According to the CCTV footage, almost simultaneously, as the boy reached the scooter, a Vidyanagar Police jeep crossed him. But upon seeing the boy near the scooter, the jeep stopped in the middle of the road, and an officer stepped out, took him to the SI, who was still seated in the jeep.

Raseena said the boy narrated what had happened, but the police refused to believe him and called in the sister. Majida repeated what her brother said. “But the police made my daughter sign a notice and took the scooter away, leaving my children stranded in the town,” said Raseena.

Majida then went to the police station in the evening, but the officers asked her to come the next day.

On December 8, Majida reached the police station to get her scooter, only to find that she had been booked under Section 125 of the BNS for acting rashly and endangering lives and Section 199A(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act for allowing a juvenile to drive the two-wheeler. The first offence attracts a fine of ₹2,500 and/or imprisonment of three months; the second attracts a punishment of three years' imprisonment and a fine of ₹25,000.

“We met the Station House Officer of Vidyanagar and narrated the incident. But he asked us to get proof of our children’s innocence,” said Majida’s maternal uncle, Abdul Noushad.

The family went to the place where the scooter was parked and saw that Everest Hypermarket and Kerala Steel had CCTV cameras. “We pleaded with them for footage to prove our innocence, and they shared it,” he said.

With the CCTV footage, they went back to the police station. “As we were showing the footage to the inspector, SI Anoop barged in, shouted at us, and said we fabricated the footage,” the uncle said.

They then went to District Police Chief B V Vijaya Bharat Reddy. “He heard us out and said the Special Branch DySP would inquire into the case and, if the FIR were fake, he would quash it. But even today, the FIR is not quashed,” the uncle said.

When contacted, SI Anoop said he did not believe the boy because the scooter’s key was in the boy's hand. “And I have seen him on a scooter several times before,” he said. “I did not have any malicious intent. It was a petty case. There was no need to make it controversial,” he said.

District Police Chief Reddy, too, did not outright call the FIR fabricated. “I have seen the footage,” he said, adding that there was a lapse in the officer’s recording of the details. He wrote as if he saw the boy riding the scooter, Reddy said. “But the officer’s intent was not bad. Juvenile driving is a big issue in Kasaragod district,” he said.

Last year, 300 juvenile-driving cases were registered in Kasaragod. “This year, the number has gone up to around 1,000. This is the only complaint we got against our cases,” he said. 

In November, a 15-year-old girl driving a scooter died after crashing into a wall in Kumbla. In another incident, an elderly man riding pillion on an electric scooter died after his 13-year-old grandson caused a crash in Manjeshwar, he said.

In this particular case, Reddy said the SI claimed he had seen the boy driving a scooter several times before. The District Police Chief said that if the Special Branch found there was no truth in the FIR, he had the authority to quash the case. The officer in question is also likely to face departmental action, he hinted.

Police officers admitted that FIRs are often written by “filling the gaps” in the events, so that cases do not collapse in court. In Majida’s case, those “petty” gaps were exposed by the CCTV cameras.