NOIDA: The complainant in the case against a 15-year-old girl over her alleged abusive remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a CJP protest has withdrawn her complaint.The complainant reportedly said she no longer wished to pursue the case after the teenager apologised and Modi forgave her, news agency PTI reported.Supreme Court lawyer Smriti Singh, who lives in Ghaziabad’s Vasundhara and had lodged the complaint, said the FIR was initially filed against eight girls, with the Noida teenager being the first among them.
Complainant withdraws cases against eight girls
Singh said a zero FIR was registered on July 29 based on her complaint at the Expressway police station in Noida.The case was registered under Sections 352 (insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 353(1) (statements conducing to public mischief) and 356(1) (defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), she said.“After the prime minister appealed for forgiveness, the girls, including the Noida girl, uploaded apology videos. I had also posted a video saying that if the girls apologised, I would withdraw my complaint,” Singh said.She said the remaining girls subsequently apologised and that she had withdrawn her complaints in all eight cases.“Since the prime minister forgave them, I also do not want to pursue the matter further. I have communicated my decision to Delhi Police and Crime Branch,” Singh told PTI.
Family alleges harassment; police say no complaint received
At the housing society in Sector 168 where the teenager and her mother lived, security guards and maintenance staff said the two were not at home.“The family had remained withdrawn since the video surfaced. Personnel from Delhi and Noida police had visited their residence on a few occasions,” a security guard said.The security and maintenance staff said they did not know the family’s current whereabouts.However, an official at Noida’s Expressway police station said no information had been received about the family facing harassment either inside the housing society or elsewhere within its jurisdiction.The official said Noida Police registered a zero FIR on the day it received the complaint and transferred it to Delhi Police as the alleged incident took place in the national capital.“The family has not been in contact with us since then and has not shared any information or complaint with the local police,” the officer said, adding that the family may have temporarily shifted to Faridabad in neighbouring Haryana.Days earlier, the girl’s mother had appealed to Modi to forgive her daughter, saying the family had repeatedly apologised and that the minor had been influenced during the protest.She also urged the prime minister to consider restricting access to social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook for children aged between 10 and 20, arguing that minors could be easily influenced and should be kept away from protests and political activities.The mother further alleged that police personnel had repeatedly visited their residence after the video surfaced, despite the family apologising.She also claimed that her daughter’s age had been incorrectly mentioned in the FIR and requested that the case be withdrawn so that the teenager could “live peacefully”.The family’s lawyer, Anil Kumar, said the girl was a juvenile and alleged that the complaint wrongly described her as a 25-year-old woman working in a salon.“The FIR had been registered without a proper preliminary verification and had that been done, the FIR would not have been registered at all,” he said.
How the controversy began
The controversy erupted after a video purportedly showing the girl using abusive language against Modi during a Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar went viral.The protest was held over the NEET paper leak and alleged irregularities in the education system, with protesters demanding the resignation of former Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who later stepped down.The girl subsequently released an apology video on social media, saying she had been “influenced” and was “extremely embarrassed and ashamed”. She described the incident as her “first and last mistake”.Modi later said he had forgiven students who allegedly abused him and his late mother, adding that they should be guided in the right direction rather than punished.Delhi Police sources had said on Monday that the zero FIR was still under examination and had not been converted into a regular FIR.They also clarified that no separate FIR had been registered in Delhi in the matter so far.(With agency inputs)
