Not again! 'Drone Boy' violates Covid-19 quarantine for the second time

Despite an FIR being slapped against him for breaching home quarantine, Prathap N M, the “Drone Boy” has done it again.

On Saturday, the police had no choice but to register a second FIR against him for violating institutional quarantine.

Police sources said the 24-year-old was placed in institutional quarantine at a four-star hotel near Richmond Circle on June 20, after he flouted home quarantine regulations.

But just five days before the end of his quarantine, Prathap once again breached the rules by asking his lawyer to meet him at the hotel. “CCTV footage showed that the lawyer met Prathap in his room and spent an hour there on July 30,” said a police source. The source added that meeting an individual under quarantine is a major breach of rules.

Describing issuing of a second FIR for violating quarantine rules as “unprecedented”, a police official said the move is necessary in the situation.

“The first FIR applies to the subject’s breach of home quarantine, while the second applies specifically to the breach of institutional
quarantine,” said the
official.

Prathap had claimed to have summoned the lawyer to discuss the condition for bail for his original quarantine breach. “That is preposterous,” said an official. “He was held in institutional quarantine. Where does the question of bail arise?”

In the second FIR, Prathap has been booked under Section 51b of the National Disaster Management Act, 2005, in addition to Sections 188, 269, 270, and 271 of the Indian Penal Code.

Prathap is said to be facing heat for fabricating claims of manufacturing 600 drones from discarded spare parts and of winning awards for the alleged feat.