Police have filed a chargesheet against seven individuals in connection with the Porsche car accident case, including the parents of a minor boy who was allegedly driving, in a Pune court. This action comes more than two months after the fatal crash.
The 900-page chargesheet, submitted in a sessions court, excludes the 17-year-old boy, whose case is being handled separately by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB). The seven accused have been charged under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and causing the disappearance of evidence, among others.
In the early hours of May 19, a high-end car allegedly driven by a minor under the influence of alcohol struck and killed two motorbike-borne IT professionals from Madhya Pradesh, including a woman, in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar area. The boy’s father, Vishal Agarwal, is a prominent builder.
“We have filed a 900-page chargesheet against seven accused, including the minor’s parents, two doctors, a staffer from Sassoon General Hospital, and two middlemen, in a Pune court on Thursday,” stated Shailesh Balkawade, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime).
The chargesheet accuses the boy’s parents and two Sassoon General Hospital doctors — Ajay Taware, then-HOD of the forensic medicine department, and Dr. Shrihari Halnor — along with Atul Ghatkamble, a staffer at the Maharashtra government-run medical facility, of swapping the minor’s blood samples with those of his mother after the crash to evade detection of alcohol content.
Two other accused, Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, allegedly acted as middlemen between the boy’s father and the doctors to facilitate financial transactions for the blood sample swap. The extensive police document includes statements from 50 witnesses.
Additional Commissioner Balkawade mentioned that the chargesheet contains a crash impact analysis report, technical evidence, and forensic laboratory and DNA reports. The police prepared a crash impact analysis report with the help of a forensic expert to correlate the impact of the Porsche car on the motorbike involved in the accident and the injuries sustained by the IT professionals who died.
Last month, the police submitted the final report to the Juvenile Justice Board detailing all evidence against the 17-year-old boy in the car crash case. While the minor’s parents remain in jail, he was released from an observation home in Pune following a Bombay High Court order late last month.
In addition to the main case related to the crash, the police filed two more cases. One case is against the owners and staffers of Cosie restaurant and Hotel Blak Club, where the teenager allegedly consumed liquor before the accident, and the other is against the boy’s father under sections 75 and 77 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. Section 77 deals with supplying a child with intoxicating liquor or drugs, applicable to the owner and managers of the two establishments. Section 75, which deals with punishment for cruelty to a child, applies to the boy’s father for giving his son the car despite knowing he did not have a driving license and allowing him to party knowing he drinks alcohol.
The second case was registered against the boy’s father and grandfather for allegedly kidnapping and confining their family driver, then threatening and pressuring him to tell the police he was driving at the time of the crash.
After obtaining blood reports and discovering they were manipulated, the police added IPC sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 213 (taking gift, etc., to screen an offender from punishment), and 214 (offering gift or restoration of property in consideration of screening offender) to the original offence lodged against the minor.
The original offence was registered under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 304A (causing death by negligence), 279 (rash driving), and relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
