As the allegations of authoritative inaction pile up around the Pune Porsche crash, another shocking revelation suggests that ₹3 lakh were reportedly handed to the doctors as a bribe for manipulating the blood tests report of the minor accused.

This illicit transaction has been disclosed by the peon of the Sassoon General Hospital, Pune, who was nabbed by the Pune crime branch on May 27, reported the media.

He reportedly disclosed collecting the illegal gratification from the accused teen’s family, which was meant for the doctors, Ajay Tawade and Hari Harnor.

The accused teen’s father, Vishal Agarwal, reportedly offered Dr Tawade several bribes to replace the blood samples through the peon, Atul Ghatkamble, police notified, reported the media.

Official sources suggest that the sample was reportedly replaced with that of a doctor to evade detection of alcohol in the minor’s system.

However, during Tawade’s investigation, he has reportedly challenged that he “won’t keep quiet; will reveal everyone’s name.”.

Sassoon Hospital staff in police remand over sample swapping

A Pune court magistrate, AA Pande, on May 27 remanded two doctors of a government hospital and a peon to police custody till May 30 for the alleged blood sample tampering.

Marking a sensational twist, Pune commissioner of police Amitesh Kumar said earlier on May 27 that the blood samples analysed by the Sassoon Hospital did not match those of the minor accused in the Porsche car crash.

Kumar said that the purported blood sample of the 17-year-old who was caught in the car crash was “thrown in the dustbin,” and the blood sample analysed was of a ‘third person’, which is being probed now.

The ‘clean chit’ in the blood test report of the accused minor boy, the son of a prominent realtor, had sparked a huge row as it enabled him to get off on bail within 15 hours of the fatal May 19 crash in the city’s Kalyani Nagar area.

Special probe panel begins probe

Taking a grim view of the blood sample change, the state administration has appointed a 3-member special panel to probe the matter and submit its report, officials said in Pune today. 

The probe panel is headed by Dr Pallavi Saple, Head of Sir JJ Hospital in Mumbai; Dr Gajanan Chauhan of Grant Medical College in Mumbai; and Dr Sudhir Choudhary of Government Medical College & Hospital in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

In the same case, Vishal, who was sent to judicial custody for 14 days, was booked in a case pertaining to the tampering of evidence and confining, luring, and threatening driver Gangaram Poojari to take the blame for the accident, but he refused and has become a prime prosecution witness.

The fatal crash claimed the lives of two IT engineers, Ashwini Koshtha and her friend Aneesh Awadhiya, both 24 and hailing from Madhya Pradesh.

The minor boy is currently lodged in a Juvenile Correctional Home in Pune. His father is in judicial custody, while his grandfather, Surendra Kumar Agarwal, is in police custody in the same case that has sparked a nationwide furore.

So far, at least nine people have been arrested in the Porsche case, including three generations of the Agarwal family.

Moreover, the three owners-managers of the pub and bar where the boy and his friends had partied on May 18–19 were also held. Two cops from the Yerwada police station, PI Rahul Jagdale and API Vishwanath Todkari, have been suspended for alleged dereliction of duty and other lapses pertaining to the accident.

(With agency inputs)