Name: M KASIMAYAN

Complaint: Petitioned to the CM’s cell on 27 December 2019 on illegal shows and extracting of excess parking fees at a theatre in Jafferkhanpet

Status: Case closed after citing an FIR, not related to his complaint. Yet to get an FIR registered on his complaint against the theatre.

RTI reply from city police: Kasimayan is not reachable because his WhatsApp number was not working

Of course, this was not the first time Kasimayan was locking horns with the police. Fighting with cops has made him an expert in handling queries through RTI applications.

Kasimayan, who lodged a complaint with the CM Cell about unauthorised film screening and overcharging for vehicle parking, was shocked to learn that MGR Nagar police had registered an unrelated FIR of a drunken brawl in front of a wine shop based on his petition. In a reply sent via the CM cell, the city police have said that case number 53/2020 has been registered based on an activist complaint of an illegal show at a theatre in Jafferkhanpet. “But the said FIR is about the drunken brawl in front of a wine shop near Ramapuram,” activist Kasimayan, from Ayapakkam, said. He had lodged a complaint to the CM cell on December 27, last year in connection with shows in a theatre and he got a reply on June 22 saying that a case has been registered under crime number 53 / 2020.

“The particular FIR was registered against somebody for a drunken brawl that happened at least 2 km away from the theatre against which I had lodged the complaint, said Kasimayan.

He got the e-mail reply from the CM cell about the details of FIR and a note on registering a complaint. Kasimayan — one of the few first callers who aired their grievances on a video call with the city Commissioner of Police on July 3 — says that his issue is still not sorted out.

He had even sent an RTI seeking to know the status of his petition to which he got a reply saying that he could not be contacted on his number, by officers and so no action was taken.

“But my number is always on. In WhatsApp number I receive messages and on the other number, I receive and make calls. If they could not reach me due to some reason, they could have messaged me, I would have contacted them,” said the activist. Kasimayan got the reply to his RTI application two months after he had video call interaction with the Chennai police commissioner.