A motorcycle bearing the registration number WB 01AF 7709 was prosecuted for helmetless riding at the crossing of Beleghata Main Road and Rajendra Mitra Road at 11.39am on a Friday last month, the same time it was parked in a Kabardanga house.

Saikat Mondal, the owner of the KTM RC 390 in orange, white and black, said he received a text alert about the e-challan for riding the bike without a helmet.

The notification left Mondal perplexed because his four-year-old bike was parked in his house at that time. Mondal logged onto the Calcutta police’s website and found at least five traffic violation cases against his bike but the corresponding photographic evidence showed a different two-wheeler with the same registration number.

“I don’t ride this bike in the city. I only to take it for a spin on highways on weekends

or on long-distance tours. I was nowhere near Beleghata that morning,” said Mondal, who posted a complaint on Calcutta traffic police’s Facebook page.

Santosh Pandey, the deputy commissioner of police, traffic, said a probe had been initiated.

“We started an inquiry based on the Facebook complaint,” Pandey said.

The traffic police decided to waive the fines for the disputed cases after checking the requisite CCTV footage and records from the motor vehicles department.

Mondal, however, said one traffic case against his bike was still pending when he logged onto the Calcutta police’s website a few days later.

“I was out of town and had taken my two-wheeler with me when this case was filed,” Mondal said.

Traffic cops said there was no photograph posted against this case.

Metro had earlier reported how a youth who was at his Thakurpukur home had received an e-challan for helmet-less riding at Narkeldanga. Photographs captured by police cameras showed a bike with two helmetless riders.

In Mondal’s case, CCTV footage showed a two-wheeler with his registration number breaking a traffic rule at the said intersection. Only, the offending vehicle was not his KTM RC 390 but a Bajaj Pulsar in black and blue with the same number.

Mondal came across photographs of the black and blue bike, bearing the same registration number as his bike,violating traffic rules at different places in the city.

“There were five photographs of two people riding the Bajaj Pulsar with my bike’s registration number without a helmet,” Mondal said.

“It seems the registration number of the Bajaj Pulsar is fake. But this needs to be probed,” said a senior officer of the traffic department.

Bajaj Pulsar with the same registration number caught on a CCTV camera Screen grab