NEW DELHI: A day after Delhi Police began examining the Zero FIR against her, Ruchika Singh, the Noida woman accused of using abusive language against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the CJP-led Jantar Mantar protest — posted a video apologising with folded hands and her head bowed, claiming she is 15 years old and was “influenced” by protesters into making the remarks.She said, “I went to visit CP with my friend. There was a protest going on, and many groups had gathered there. People were saying all sorts of things, including filthy abuses against the Prime Minister. I got influenced because they told me to say something too. I was impressed and ended up saying a lot of things. I’m just 15 years old.”She further said, “What I did is unforgivable. I said something very vulgar. But this is my first and last mistake. I will never do something like that again. I never posted that video. I want to say sorry to the entire nation. I can’t even look up. Please forgive me. Please.”The claim sits at odds with details gathered by police and neighbours over the past week. SHO Amit Khare of the Expressway police station, where the original Zero FIR was registered on a complaint by Ghaziabad lawyer Smriti Singh, had said Ruchika resides with her family in Faridabad and owns a flat — bought in January — at Lotus Zing society in Sector 150, Noida.Mehtab Singh, a security guard at the society, told she has lived there for several years with her mother and worked regularly until she went missing after the Jantar Mantar incident.The Zero FIR, filed under BNS Sections 352 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 353(1) (public mischief) and 356(1) (defamation), was transferred from Noida to Delhi’s Special Cell on Friday, since the alleged offence occurred within the capital’s jurisdiction. It runs alongside a separate FIR Delhi Police had already registered over the circulation of the derogatory content, with notices issued to X seeking its removal.The episode has drawn PM Modi’s own intervention. In an Instagram video Friday, he said the abuse — directed at him and, he said, his late mother was “a cultural shock.”However, Modi urged restraint and appealed against punitive action. “These young people should be embraced, not punished,” he said, arguing that court cases and criminal proceedings would not address the larger social problem reflected in the incident.CJP spokesperson Saurav Das and founder Abhijeet Dipke have separately accused police of selective action, arguing profanity should draw civil defamation suits, not criminal cases, and pointing to alleged unpunished remarks by BJP leaders and IT-cell handles.TOI has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the viral apology video.
