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Porsche crash: Police file chargesheet; teen excluded, parents among 7 named
Porsche crash: The high-end car allegedly driven by the minor under the influence of alcohol knocked down two motorbike-borne IT professionals.
The Pune City Crime Branch on Thursday submitted a 900-page chargesheet in the local court against seven persons in connection with the Porsche crash, officials said on Friday.
The chargesheet has excluded the 17-year-old boy, whose case is handled separately by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), while the seven accused have been charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections related to criminal conspiracy and causing disappearance of evidence, among others.
The high-end car allegedly driven by the minor under the influence of alcohol knocked down two motorbike-borne IT professionals originally hailing from Madhya Pradesh, one of them a woman, at Kalyaninagar in the wee hours of May 19, killing them.
“The accused include the parents of the minor, two suspended Sassoon General Hospital doctors Ajay Taware and Shrihari Halnor, hospital staffer Atul Ghatkamble and two middlemen Ashfaque Makandar and Amar Gaikwad,” said Shailesh Balkawade, additional commissioner of police (crime), adding that the chargesheet contains a crash impact analysis report, technical evidence, forensic laboratory and DNA reports.
The teen father is a prominent builder in Pune.
The police had prepared a crash impact analysis report of the accident with the help of a forensic expert. The purpose of the report is to correlate the impact of the Porsche car on the motorbike involved in the accident and correlate with injuries of the IT professionals who died.
While the hospital staff are accused of swapping the blood samples of the minor with those of his mother after the crash to evade detection of alcohol content, the middlemen facilitated financial transactions between the boy’s father and the doctors, according to the chargesheet that contains recorded statements of 50 witnesses.
The crime branch is in possession of CCTV footages where the bribe money was given to staffer Ghatkamble by Makandar on the advice of Dr Taware and Dr Halnor.
Last month, the police had submitted the final report to the JJB detailing evidence against the 17-year-old boy in the car crash case. While the minor boy’s parents are still in jail, he was released from an observation home in Pune following a Bombay High Court order late last month.
The police have slapped two more cases — one against owners and staffers of Cosie Restaurant and Hotel Blak Club, where the teenager allegedly consumed liquor before the accident, and the father of the juvenile under Sections 75 and 77 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
While Section 77 of the JJ Act deals with supplying a child with intoxicating liquor or drugs, which was applicable to the owner and managers of the two establishments, Section 75 deals with punishment for cruelty to child. The Section 75 applies to the boy’s father as he gave his son the car despite knowing the boy did not have a driving licence, thus endangering his life. He also allowed his son to party even while knowing he drinks alcohol.
The second case was registered against the father and the grandfather of the minor for allegedly kidnapping and confining their family driver and then threatening and pressuring him to tell the police that he was behind the wheel at the time of the crash.
