Pune Porsche crash: 2 cops dismissed from service for dereliction of duty in the initial response

When contacted, Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar confirmed to The Indian Express that the two officers had been dismissed from the service. A proposal to dismiss them had been sent to the office of the Maharashtra director-general of police in March following the findings of an inquiry conducted against them, Kumar said.

Aneesh Awadhiya and his friend Ashwini Koshta, both aged 24 and hailing from Madhya Pradesh, were killed after the speeding Porsche driven by a 17-year-old boy allegedly in an inebriated state hit their motorcycle around 2.30 am on May 19 last year in Pune’s Kalyaninagar area.

The police subsequently arrested multiple people, including the minor’s father; the boy’s mother; Dr Ajay Taware, then head of forensic medicine at Sassoon Hospital; Dr Shrihari Halnor, then casualty medical officer; Atul Ghatkamble, a staffer at the hospital’s morgue; and Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, who acted as middlemen between the minor’s father and the doctors. They were charged with tampering with evidence, forgery, criminal conspiracy, and corruption for swapping blood samples.
Juvenile Justice Board rejects plea to try minor as adult

The then-minor driver has been arraigned at the Juvenile Justice Board, where he faces charges of culpable homicide, among others. The Pune police have also arrested and charged a 37-year-old man who had given his blood to be swapped with that of a minor co-passenger, along with the co-passenger’s father.

Another minor co-passenger’s father was also arrested earlier for giving his own blood sample to be swapped with his son’s blood sample.
In July this year, the Pune Juvenile Justice Board rejected the police plea to try the minor accused in the Porsche crash case as an adult. The prosecution argued that the 17-year-old boy had committed a heinous offence and was driving the car after consuming liquor despite knowing its consequences.

It stated that the minor boy was also part of a blood swap cover-up conspiracy in which his blood was replaced with his mother’s. The defence had opposed the application, arguing that the offence cannot be legally termed “heinous” and also argued that the object of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act is “reformative” and not “punitive”.