A Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ordering release on the condition of writing an essay, alleged abduction of driver to coerce him to take the blame, alleged tampering of blood samples of the drunk juvenile driver — the Porsche accident case in Pune is nothing less than a script out of a crime thriller.
In the wee hours of 19 May, an allegedly intoxicated juvenile, underage for both drinking and driving, rammed an over-speeding Porsche into a bike in Pune's Kalyani Nagar area, immediately killing two engineers Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Costa.
What followed is a saga of blatant evidence tampering, witness intimidation, and reports of political meddling.
While the debate over corruption and miscarriage of justice rages on, here are eight shocking aspects to have emerged in this case, eight days since it occurred:
Blood Samples Swapped, Driver Abducted: The Murky Saga of Pune Porsche Tragedy
1. 'Write an Essay': The Juvenile Justice Board's Leniency
What brought national attention to the incident was the release of the accused minor within 15 hours of the accident.
After the accused was taken into custody, the holiday court in Pune refused the police's request to try him as an adult and granted him bail.
According to the minor's lawyer Prashant Patil, the court granted the bail on conditions that the accused writes a 300-word essay on accidents, works with the traffic police for 15 days, and takes psychiatric help to quit drinking.
Amid continued outrage over the release and the bail conditions, Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar has been stressing that the police is under no pressure to be lenient and will move the Bombay High Court to try the minor as an adult.
It was only after three days of public outrage that the accused minor's bail was revoked by JJB and he was sent to an observation home till 5 June. Under fire, deputy CM and state home minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed "shock" regarding the case.
Expand2. Two Bars Served Alcohol to Underage Teenagers
Ahead of the accident, the minor, along with a group of 10-12 of his friends were served alcohol at two bars in the Kalyani Nagar area despite all of them being underage.
The legal drinking age in Maharashtra is 25.
According to the FIR, the group of friends first came to Cosie in Pune's Mundhwa area where they were served food and alcohol till midnight. The group then headed to Blak pub in Marriott Suites where they consumed more alcohol from midnight to about 1:30 am.
Cosie's owner Prahlad Bhutda, manager Sachin Katkar, Blak's manager Sandeep Sangle, and bar counter manager Jayesh Bonkar have been arrested in the case by the Crime Branch. Both establishments were also sealed by the district collector.
Expand3. 8-Hour Delay in Collecting Accused's Blood Sample
The Pune police on 23 May admitted to a delay in collecting the blood sample of the accused.
While the accident occurred at around 2:30 am, the accused was taken to Sassoon hospital for collecting his blood sample only at 9:00 am, while the sample was collected at 11:00 am.
Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar told the media that the reasons behind the delay in collecting the blood sample were probed and two police officers have been suspended for dereliction of duty over the initial probe.
Expand4. Porsche's Registration with Pune RTO Pending
The Porsche was reportedly bought from a dealer in Bengaluru earlier in March but its permanent registration with the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) is still pending, sources said.
The Pune RTO reportedly told the police that a temporary registration number was allotted to the vehicle to facilitate its transfer from Bengaluru to Pune.
The registration of the vehicle, which was bought in the minor's father's name, was pending since formalities were still left incomplete by the owners, the Pune RTO told the police.
On 21 May, two days after the accident, the Pune RTO issued a notice to all vehicle dealers in the city that no vehicle should be allowed on the streets without proper registration.
Expand5. Allegations of Interference by Local MLA
As the case gained momentum with several political parties accusing the Pune police of giving in to political pressure to invoke less stringent sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the accused, politicking peaked over the presence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP Ajit Pawar faction) MLA Sunil Tingre at the police station on the night of the mishap.
Taking to social media, Tingre refuted allegations of pressurising the police to go soft on the accused.
Alleging that Opposition parties wanted to malign his political image with bogus claims on social media, Tingre said: "Vishal Agarwal (father of the accused) who is known to me called to tell that his son met with an accident. Accordingly, as a responsible public representative, I went to the spot first thing in the morning and then to Yerwada police station."
"Accordingly, I left there after giving instructions that strict legal action should be taken against the culprits. Even the police officers will corroborate that I did not put any pressure on them. Hence, a case was registered by 6:00 am and court proceedings were also conducted," Tingre said.
Expand6. CCTV Footage at Accused's Residence Allegedly Tampered With
On 24 May, the police, while seeking an extension of the accused's father's custody, told the court that there may have been attempts to tamper with the CCTV visuals obtained from the accused's residence to try to establish that the minor was not driving the car when it left the residence.
Speaking to the media, Commissioner Kumar said that Section 201 of the IPC may be slapped against the accused for trying to tamper with evidence.
The court extended the custody of the minor's father and the five other accused in the case till 7 June.
Expand7. Driver 'Abducted', Forced to Take Blame
On 25 May, Commissioner Kumar told the media that an FIR was lodged by the 42-year-old driver against the minor's father and grandfather for allegedly confining and coercing him to admit that he was driving the Porsche at the time of the accident.
As per the FIR, the third one related to the case, the driver was returning home from the police station in the wee hours of 20 May when the minor's grandfather asked him to sit in his BMW car and took him to their residence.
At the accused's residence, the minor's father and grandfather then allegedly confiscated his phone and promised him "rewards" if he took the blame for the accident or "dire consequences" otherwise.
The minor's grandfather, too, was arrested and sent to judicial custody till 28 May.
Expand8. Doctors Swapped Blood Samples of Accused Juvenile
The Pune police on Monday revealed that the blood sample taken at Pune's Sassoon hospital was allegedly swapped by doctors who were bribed to ensure that the blood alcohol test of the juvenile comes out negative.
"We received the forensic reports on Sunday evening. The reports reveal that the blood sample which was labelled as that of the accused minor by doctors at the Sassoon hospital was not of the accused. This was concluded from the second sample that we had taken and sent for DNA sampling to Aundh. The sample at Aundh is that of the juvenile accused and matches with the father too," Kumar said on Monday.
The doctors that collected and sealed the blood samples for forensic testing told the police that they threw the minor's samples in the dustbin and swapped them with somebody else's blood, the police said.
The police said that although it has arrested the head of Sassoon hospital's forensic testing department Ajay Tawre, the sample sent to Aundh was taken about 20 hours after the incident only for DNA sampling and hence, it has tested negative for alcohol in blood.
The police has also confiscated the CCTV visuals at Sasoon hospital to further build a case against the accused doctors.
Kumar further said that the negative report of blood alcohol will not affect the case since the accused is being tried under IPC Section 304A (death by negligence).
(With inputs from Indian Express and Hindustan Times.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)
Expand
'Write an Essay': The Juvenile Justice Board's Leniency
What brought national attention to the incident was the release of the accused minor within 15 hours of the accident.
After the accused was taken into custody, the holiday court in Pune refused the police's request to try him as an adult and granted him bail.
According to the minor's lawyer Prashant Patil, the court granted the bail on conditions that the accused writes a 300-word essay on accidents, works with the traffic police for 15 days, and takes psychiatric help to quit drinking.
Amid continued outrage over the release and the bail conditions, Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar has been stressing that the police is under no pressure to be lenient and will move the Bombay High Court to try the minor as an adult.
It was only after three days of public outrage that the accused minor's bail was revoked by JJB and he was sent to an observation home till 5 June. Under fire, deputy CM and state home minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed "shock" regarding the case.
Two Bars Served Alcohol to Underage Teenagers
Ahead of the accident, the minor, along with a group of 10-12 of his friends were served alcohol at two bars in the Kalyani Nagar area despite all of them being underage.
The legal drinking age in Maharashtra is 25.
According to the FIR, the group of friends first came to Cosie in Pune's Mundhwa area where they were served food and alcohol till midnight. The group then headed to Blak pub in Marriott Suites where they consumed more alcohol from midnight to about 1:30 am.
Cosie's owner Prahlad Bhutda, manager Sachin Katkar, Blak's manager Sandeep Sangle, and bar counter manager Jayesh Bonkar have been arrested in the case by the Crime Branch. Both establishments were also sealed by the district collector.
8-Hour Delay in Collecting Accused's Blood Sample
The Pune police on 23 May admitted to a delay in collecting the blood sample of the accused.
While the accident occurred at around 2:30 am, the accused was taken to Sassoon hospital for collecting his blood sample only at 9:00 am, while the sample was collected at 11:00 am.
Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar told the media that the reasons behind the delay in collecting the blood sample were probed and two police officers have been suspended for dereliction of duty over the initial probe.
Porsche's Registration with Pune RTO Pending
The Porsche was reportedly bought from a dealer in Bengaluru earlier in March but its permanent registration with the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) is still pending, sources said.
The Pune RTO reportedly told the police that a temporary registration number was allotted to the vehicle to facilitate its transfer from Bengaluru to Pune.
The registration of the vehicle, which was bought in the minor's father's name, was pending since formalities were still left incomplete by the owners, the Pune RTO told the police.
On 21 May, two days after the accident, the Pune RTO issued a notice to all vehicle dealers in the city that no vehicle should be allowed on the streets without proper registration.
Allegations of Interference by Local MLA
As the case gained momentum with several political parties accusing the Pune police of giving in to political pressure to invoke less stringent sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the accused, politicking peaked over the presence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP Ajit Pawar faction) MLA Sunil Tingre at the police station on the night of the mishap.
Taking to social media, Tingre refuted allegations of pressurising the police to go soft on the accused.
Alleging that Opposition parties wanted to malign his political image with bogus claims on social media, Tingre said: "Vishal Agarwal (father of the accused) who is known to me called to tell that his son met with an accident. Accordingly, as a responsible public representative, I went to the spot first thing in the morning and then to Yerwada police station."
"Accordingly, I left there after giving instructions that strict legal action should be taken against the culprits. Even the police officers will corroborate that I did not put any pressure on them. Hence, a case was registered by 6:00 am and court proceedings were also conducted," Tingre said.
CCTV Footage at Accused's Residence Allegedly Tampered With
On 24 May, the police, while seeking an extension of the accused's father's custody, told the court that there may have been attempts to tamper with the CCTV visuals obtained from the accused's residence to try to establish that the minor was not driving the car when it left the residence.
Speaking to the media, Commissioner Kumar said that Section 201 of the IPC may be slapped against the accused for trying to tamper with evidence.
The court extended the custody of the minor's father and the five other accused in the case till 7 June.
Driver 'Abducted', Forced to Take Blame
On 25 May, Commissioner Kumar told the media that an FIR was lodged by the 42-year-old driver against the minor's father and grandfather for allegedly confining and coercing him to admit that he was driving the Porsche at the time of the accident.
As per the FIR, the third one related to the case, the driver was returning home from the police station in the wee hours of 20 May when the minor's grandfather asked him to sit in his BMW car and took him to their residence.
At the accused's residence, the minor's father and grandfather then allegedly confiscated his phone and promised him "rewards" if he took the blame for the accident or "dire consequences" otherwise.
The minor's grandfather, too, was arrested and sent to judicial custody till 28 May.
Doctors Swapped Blood Samples of Accused Juvenile
The Pune police on Monday revealed that the blood sample taken at Pune's Sassoon hospital was allegedly swapped by doctors who were bribed to ensure that the blood alcohol test of the juvenile comes out negative.
"We received the forensic reports on Sunday evening. The reports reveal that the blood sample which was labelled as that of the accused minor by doctors at the Sassoon hospital was not of the accused. This was concluded from the second sample that we had taken and sent for DNA sampling to Aundh. The sample at Aundh is that of the juvenile accused and matches with the father too," Kumar said on Monday.
The doctors that collected and sealed the blood samples for forensic testing told the police that they threw the minor's samples in the dustbin and swapped them with somebody else's blood, the police said.
The police said that although it has arrested the head of Sassoon hospital's forensic testing department Ajay Tawre, the sample sent to Aundh was taken about 20 hours after the incident only for DNA sampling and hence, it has tested negative for alcohol in blood.
The police has also confiscated the CCTV visuals at Sasoon hospital to further build a case against the accused doctors.
Kumar further said that the negative report of blood alcohol will not affect the case since the accused is being tried under IPC Section 304A (death by negligence).
(With inputs from Indian Express and Hindustan Times.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)