Pune: Maharashtra Police have arrested the mother of the juvenile who was involved in the Porsche car accident, a senior police official said on Saturday.
Investigations revealed that the doctors have swapped the minor's blood sample with that of his mother and the same has been confirmed, the police official said.
The police are likely to produce the arrested woman before a City court later in the day.
According to City Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar, the investigation into the accident has revealed that the doctors in the casualty swapped the juvenile's blood samples with his mother's.
Earlier, the city police told the jurisdictional court that the blood samples of the 17-year-old boy involved were exchanged with a woman's.
The minor who was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) was sent to an observation home till June 5. His realtor-father, and grandfather were arrested on charges of kidnapping their family's driver. The family has been accused of pressuring the driver to take the blame.
A court Friday remanded the minor's father and grandfather in judicial custody for 14 days when they were produced on the culmination of their police custody.
Dr Ajay Taware, then head of the department of forensic medicine at Sassoon General Hospital, medical officer Dr Shrihari Halnor and mortuary assistant Atul Ghatkamble were arrested by the police. They were accused of manipulating the minor's blood samples to show that he was not drunk at the time of the accident, helping him get off the hook. The court has remanded them in police custody till June 5.
Police said about a dozen calls were exchanged between the boy's father and Dr Taware, during the sample collection for blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test.
Maharashtra Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif said, “the police found that Dr Ajay Taware was on leave on the night of the Pune accident, and he got a call from someone. He accepted ₹3 lakh, called Dr Halnor to manipulate the blood samples. This was absolutely wrong.”
City police sought the custody of the juvenile's father's custody who has been arrested on charges of destroying evidence, after the JJB has allowed police to investigate the minor.
As per the Juvenile Justice Act, a minor can be inquired in the parents' presence.
On May 19, two IT professionals were fatally run over during the wee hours in Kalyani Nagar by a Porsche reportedly driven by the juvenile. The juvenile was caught by the other road users and was given a thrashing as they found him intoxicated, the video of the aftermath of the accident was all over social media.
Police also charged the juvenile of being drunk at the time when the car rammed into a two-wheeler, leading to fatalities.
When produced before the JJB granted, the minor managed to secure bail, a few hours after the crash. A JJB member directed the minor to write a 300-word essay on road safety, stoking a nationwide outcry. Police presented a fresh application seeking reconsideration of the bail. The application was accepted. The JJB modified its order, sending him to an observation home till June 5.
The Maharashtra government has set up a committee to probe the conduct of the state-appointed members of JJB after its single-member board granted bail to the minor. The committee will go into the norms laid-down under the JJB Act and file a compliance report with respect to the bail orders in the Pune Porsche accident.
The committee, which is led by a deputy commissioner, is expected to submit its report by next week, according to the Women and Child Development Commissioner, Prashant Narnavare.
Read More
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