Porsche car crash case: Pune court allows police to question all 10 accused in jail

The car seized by police. File Pic/PTI

A special court in Pune on Wednesday allowed a police plea seeking nod to question all the 10 jailed accused in the Porsche crash case, including parents of the juvenile who was driving the luxury car that fatally knocked down two motorbike-borne IT professionals in May.

The other accused include two doctors and one staffer of Maharashtra government-run Sassoon General Hospital and two middlemen -- all held in connection with alleged swapping of blood samples of the juvenile after the crash.

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Additional Sessions Judge (Special Court) U M Mudholkar allowed the police to question the accused in the Yerwada central prison, where they are currently lodged in judicial custody.

The prosecution plea was to question all the 10 accused -- the minor's parents, two doctors from Sassoon Hospital Ajay Taware, Dr Shreehari Halnor, the facility's staff member Atul Ghatkamble, two middlemen Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, accused of facilitating financial transactions in the blood swapping case, and three others - Aditya Avinash Sood, Ashish Mittal and Arun Kumar Singh.

Sood and Singh are fathers of two minors who were with the juvenile driver in the car when the accident took place and whose blood samples were also swapped.

Mittal is Singh's friend, whose blood samples were swapped with those of the minor son of Singh.

A Porsche car, allegedly driven under the influence of alcohol by the 17-year-old boy, whose father is a well-know real estate developer, knocked down and killed two software professionals who were on a motorbike in the early hours of May 19 in the upscale Kalyani Nagar area. The deceased originally hailed from Madhya Pradesh and were working in Pune.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ganesh Ingale, the investigating officer in the case, said a plea was moved before the court seeking nod to allow police to question all ten accused.

"As three accused -- Sood, Mittal and Singh -- were arrested in later stage of the probe, a face to face questioning was required of all the accused regarding financial transactions and to ascertain whether the trio had given any sort of allurements to other accused in the case," said Ingale.

Besides financial transactions, there are other aspects in terms of some fresh leads in the case which need to be probed, said the police officer.

According to police, blood samples of the juvenile after the crash were replaced with those of his mother at Sassoon Hospital in order to ensure his report came negative for alcohol content.

The swapping was done by Dr Halnor, the then-chief medical officer at Sassoon Hospital, on directions of Dr Taware, they said.

It is alleged that two other accused -- Makandar and Gaikwad -- acted as middlemen between the juvenile's parents and the doctors and facilitated financial transactions to carry out blood sample replacements.

Later, it was revealed that blood samples of two other minors, who were with the juvenile at the time of accident, were also replaced.

Meanwhile, a defence lawyer representing Dr Taware moved an application in the court seeking discharge of his client.

The lawyer, citing the chargesheet filed in the case, contended that there was absolutely no material available on record to link Dr Taware with the case.

One month after the accident, the Bombay High Court ordered release of the accused juvenile from an observation home in Pune.

The case caused a national uproar after the Juvenile Justice Board, before whom the teenager was produced after the crash, granted bail to him on lenient terms, including writing a 300-word essay on road safety.

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