Pune Porsche crash: 2 police officers likely to face the axe for shoddy probe

An internal inquiry also pointed out lapses while registering the case and a delay in collecting blood samples.

Two Maharashtra Police officers are likely to face dismissal for alleged negligence in the investigation of last year’s fatal Porsche crash, where a drunk minor driver killed two tech professionals, a top official said.

Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar said a proposal was sent to the Maharashtra Home department on Thursday ”seeking dismissal of these two suspended cops.” A Porsche car, allegedly driven by a 17-year-old boy in an inebriated condition, had fatally run over two motorcycle-borne techies in the Kalyani Nagar area in the early hours of May 19 last year.Inspector Rahul Jagdale and assistant police inspector Vishwanath Todkari, attached to Yerawada police station, were suspended for late reporting of the incident and dereliction of duty at the time.

An internal inquiry also pointed out lapses while registering the case and a delay in collecting blood samples.According to the police, there was a delay in collecting the juvenile’s blood samples. While the accident took place around 2 am, the samples were collected at 11 am.It was also alleged that due to the intervention by a local politician, the police dealt very softly with him. The teenager, son of a builder, was produced before the juvenile justice board, which granted him bail while asking him to write a 300-word essay on road safety.

The order led to a hue and cry, and he was detained again, but the Bombay High Court eventually ordered his release.The probe received another twist when it was revealed that there was an attempt, at the Sassoon government hospital, to swap the blood samples of the juvenile driver and his two minor friends who were with him in the car, so as to conceal the fact that they were drunk.

Police arrested a total of ten persons: the teenage driver’s parents Vishal Agarwal and Shivani Agarwal; hospital doctors Ajay Tawre, Shreehari Halnor; hospital employee Atul Ghatkamble, two `middlemen’, and Aditya Avinash Sood, Ashish Mittal and Arun Kumar Singh.All ten are still in judicial custody.While Sood and Singh are fathers of the other two minors, Mittal is Singh’s friend whose blood samples were swapped with those of the minor son of Singh. Bail applications of Singh and Mittal are being heard at the Pune sessions court, said special public prosecutor Advocate Shishir Hiray.