- Saturday, November 23, 2024
Dr Ajay Taware and Dr Srihari Halnor — along with another person at a local hospital, Atul Ghatakamble, were arrested by officials of Pune Crime Branch on May 27 morning on the charge of tampering with evidence.
By: Shubham Ghosh
NEARLY 10 days after a 17-year-old boy crashed his Porsche car into a motorcycle, killing two young IT professionals in the western Indian city of Pune, a new twist has emerged — of tampering of evidence and attempts of covering up the matter.
According to a report by Pune Times Mirror, two doctors of Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital — Dr Ajay Taware and Dr Srihari Halnor — along with another employee, Atul Ghatakamble, were arrested by officials of Pune Crime Branch on Monday (27) morning.
The trio were held on the charge of tampering with evidence that could have proven that the minor was drunk while he was driving the luxury car at a high speed at the time of the accident in the city’s Kalyani Nagar. The victims, Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashini Koshta, who were riding the motorcycle, were killed soon after being hit.
According to Pune Times Mirror, the arrests took place after it came up with an investigative report that put pressure on the administration to examine the forensic officials’ involvement in the matter.
Read: Pune crash: Killer Porsche, priced at £236k, plied without registration as owner didn’t pay £17
Pune’s police commissioner Amitesh Kumar said the arrests happened after it was revealed that the blood sample of the minor was discarded at the hospital and some other sample was sent for testing allegedly, the report added.
It was learnt that while Dr Taware is the head of the department of forensic and toxicology at Sassoon Hospital, Dr Halnor was the chief medical officer on the day of the incident (May 19). Ghatakamble is also an employee at the hospital.
Read: Father of minor, whose racing Porsche killed two bikers in India’s Pune, arrested
The investigative report also moved the Maharashtra Medical Council to serve notices to the doctors for their alleged negligence and corruption.
After the crash took place in the wee hours of May 19, the minor underwent a medical examination conducted by the police. The two doctors were reportedly involved in the incident where the accused’s blood sample was allegedly changed.
The police later got a second blood sample from the boy and carried out a DNA test, which brought to the fore the discrepancies.
The Pune Times Mirror also reported that the police scrutinized the mobile phone of the father of the minor and obtained crucial information. Vishal Agarwal, a prominent real-estate developer who was later arrested from the city of Aurangabad, located around 250 kilometres from Pune, reportedly spoke to Dr Taware and negotiated a “settlement” to get the evidence hushed up.
