Porsche crash: Pune court extends police custody of trio accused of swapping blood sample

Pune (Maharashtra), May 30 (IANS) A Pune court on Thursday extended till June 5 the police custody of two doctors and a peon of the Sassoon General Hospital who were arrested for allegedly changing the blood samples of the minor accused in the May 19 Pune Porsche crash that left two techies dead.

The accused doctors, Ajay Taware and Shrihari Halnor, and peon Atul Ghatkamble – who were suspended by the state government on Wednesday – were produced before the court after their first police remand ended on Thursday.

Arguing for extending the custody of the accused trio, the police lawyer told the court that the blood sample of the minor accused was replaced with the blood sample of a woman, ostensibly to prove that the 17-year-old boy was not in an inebriated state at the time of the crash.

The police said that they wanted to probe the woman’s identity and match her blood sample with the boy’s blood sample to determine the swap and related aspects.

The three accused were raided and arrested after the police probe revealed that they had changed the minor’s blood sample in the bin and taken the blood sample of a woman – suspected to be his mother – and two others, to help him get off the hook.

The police said that Halnor did not throw away the boy’s blood sample – as informed earlier by the city police chief to the media – but had handed it over to someone else and the police now want to trace and recover the original sample.

Last week, the minor’s mother, Shivani V. Agarwal, became emotional and flatly denied that her son had recorded a purported video of a rap song following his arrest on May 19 after the Porsche speeding at around 160 kmph killed IT professional duo Ashwini Koshtha and Aneesh Awadhiya, both aged 24, sparking a nationwide furore.

Till date, the police have arrested around 10 persons in connection with the case, while the Dean of the Sassoon General Hospital has been sent on compulsory leave pending probe.

Two police officers have also been suspended, while the minor boy’s mother is now under the radar of the investigators.

–IANS

qn/arm